


people like them

by thoseguitarists



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Age Difference, Age Play, Attempted Rape, Barebacking, Body Worship, Cheating, Daddy Kink, Death, Dom/sub Undertones, Drug Use, F/M, Kidnapping, M/M, Mentions of Abortion, Mentions of Death, Mentions of Murder, Mentions of Rape, Mentions of Suicide, Narry - Freeform, Public Humiliation, Public Sex, it's really fucked up okay, mentions of drug use
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-20 17:59:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 25,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6019675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thoseguitarists/pseuds/thoseguitarists
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They knew the world wouldn't accept them, so they made a world all their own, and in it they lost it all but found each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. boys like you

**Author's Note:**

> This story is kind of messed up, okay? There's talk of abortion and rape and drug use and death and suicide and murder, and even attempted murder, too, at one point. There's daddy kink and ageplay and cheating and lying and manipulation and disownment and body worship and public intercourse and everything else. This story is fucked up. And ― and Niall's story, as well as Harry's, is real. It really happened to people I know, though things are twisted up just a bit to make things more interesting. Be careful reading this, if you want; it's quite heavy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 11.k of fluffy, uncomfortable and quick feelings that involve mentions of attempted rape, drugs, and spanking, and as well as a toasty bout of daddy Harry and baby boy Niall taking care of one another in the ways they're supposed to. Tamest part of the story, but uneasy in a way that a lot of stuff is coming up quick.

Harry’s sleeping ― Harry’s sleeping, and he’s dreaming of mannequins that turn into vampires afterhours, that dress up humans and the prettiest one is who gets sucked dry first, oddly enough, and then he’s not anymore in his own tangled mine anymore, tugged from unconsciousness by a rattling on his bedside table that’s followed by a loud rendition of some sort of alarm from the depths of hell, loud and screeching and so, so unnecessary.

He’s up in an instant, rubbing at his sleep-crusted eyes with one hand while the other flies out, blindly reaching for his cellphone that’s laid out on the bedside table; it’s a bright light in his black room that makes him groan, that makes him blink and blink and blink till his vision is clear and he can see that the numbers flashing across the screen are ones he’s never seen before, ones that aren’t programmed in his phone.

_What in the world?_

He shakes his head, slides the phone to answer the call, wagering that it could be somebody from the university informing him of a closing since it’s been snowing nonstop all Sunday, letting him know that the roads and public transports are too dangerous to be on this time of the year. Besides, the few months he’s been working as the stand-in head librarian at the university, he’s learned that his number ― and address, and social media, and work schedule, and familial tree, as well, it seems; there isn’t a thing as privacy when you’re a young newcomer, he’s discovered ― has bounced around among both staff members and students alike.

Because he’s interesting, apparently; because his lackluster life and boring routine is _so_ _fun_ for all of the students enrolled at the university.

“Hello?” his voice is thick and deep, and it’s almost incomprehensible to his own ears; he clears his throat, swallows the wintry mix of snot and mucus ― he really needs to make a trip to the pharmacy to pick up a package of over-the-counter allergy relief ― and tries again. “Um, hi? Hello?”

There’s a crackling noise, and then a loud, too heavy bang that makes Harry jerk to a standing position, and his knees are wobbling and his feet are burning from the chill of the hardwood. “Harry?” a voice calls, and it’s familiar in a way that Harry’s heard it a few times before, he thinks, floating in and out of his mind as he worked, as he tried to stay focused on his job instead of the too-cute kid in the corner. “Harry, t’at you?”

Harry coughs. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s Harry. Who is this?”

“Ni ― Niall.”

“Niall?”

A flash of memory breaks apart the sleepiness in Harry’s mind, and he vividly recalls a dyed-blond boy with big eyes and a soft tone hanging out at the library afterhours, sipping at a watered-down Dr. Pepper in a foam cup and eating Cheetos and studying for midterms as Harry shelved the books and put new copies of used textbooks into the computer systems. He remembers Niall, yeah ― remembers Niall’s bright blue eyes and pink lips and silk-like hair; remembers Niall’s obnoxious laughter and dirty clothes and chipped fingernails; remembers Niall’s rude friends and sweet mannerisms and soft nakedness as he was overwhelmed by tons of people raging and raging and raging.

He remembers Niall because Niall is kind of unforgettable, in a way. He’s like snow before it’s muddled by dirty footprints, like clear water that’s ripping in the savage wind before a penetrating force breaks the surface ― _so pretty_.

“Niall?” Harry says it again, likes the way it tastes on his tongue in the middle of the night surrounded by total blackness. There’s a certain ring to it that makes his body hum, that makes him pound in all the right places at all the wrong times. “Niall, how did you get my number?”

“That doesn’t matter.” Niall’s words are slurred and dense, and he sounds drunk, sounds inebriated and completely out of it; there’s loud crashes going on around him, and the noise is filtering to Harry’s side of the line, and it’s making him itch, making him shake because he doesn’t know what’s going on, because he wants to know what’s going on, because he has no idea how to begin to understand what’s going on. “I just… I need your help, Harry. I need it really, really bad.”

“How?” Harry asks, and he’s squeaking now, with high-pitched, acidic terror rising up inside his bones and jumpstarting his heart, electrocuting him into total awareness. “Why? What’s happened, Ni?” His heart is pounding and he is pulsating, and the gooseflesh crawling along his bare skin isn’t just from the chill of the room. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t want to be here anymore, Harry,” Niall replies, sniffling, and ― and he’s not _crying_ , is he? Surely he’s not. He can’t be. Niall’s a big boy, Niall’s a _good_ boy ― good boys don’t cry, and big boys don’t cry, either. Not over spilled milk, at least, and Harry is hoping that this is all that’s upsetting Niall ― a horrible case of spilled milk. “Will you come pick me up? Please?”

It’s 3:12 in the morning, and Harry has work at and Niall has class in five hours, and the weather outside is nasty and cold and bitter, messy and colored white that’s smeared brown and black and red, and his car is almost out of fuel and he has no clean pants and his toes are freezing against the wooden floor, and he shouldn’t say yes, shouldn’t commit himself to go pick up a troubled youth in the middle of the night when he needs to get his life back on track, when he needs to fix himself before he begins to fix others, but Niall needs help and Harry can help him.

Harry can help Niall.

He can’t say no. Niall’s not particularly the funniest lad, or the smartest or the most beautiful, or the nicest and most polite, either, but there’s something about the desperation, something about the pleading in his tone that makes Harry want to take Niall in his arms and hold him close till it’s all gone, till nothing ugly is obscuring the gold, the fire and rush of color in Niall’s eyes.

“Tell me where you are,” Harry commands, and he’s completely clear of sleep now, wired from adrenaline as he tears across his room, flicking on the light and jerking clothes from drawers and the closet, tossing them on the bed and searching for his winter boots. “I’m on my way.”

-

“You’re not saying anything.”

Harry’s fingers tighten around the wheel; his rings are cold against his skin and his heater has decided to hiccup and not work ― he really needs to invest in a new vehicle when he has the money and credit; sadly, fucking up for four years straight has sort of ruined him, and it’s going to take him a bit longer to crawl out of the funk he’s found himself rooted in ― and it’s quite chilly in the car. Niall’s cuddled up in a blanket Harry had in the trunk and Harry’s dealing with thermals and two jackets over a hoodie and sweater, and their breath is sparkles of ice between in the dark silence.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Harry replies, sighing around the dejection in his mind, in his heart. The car is cold, yes, and it smells like anger, smells like the ripeness of cheap liquor and wet desire and mean curses and hot addiction. It’s a scent that makes Harry want to vomit, that makes Harry want to stop this car and get out and run and run and run ― like he used to when he was faced with problems, when life was a little bit too much; this isn’t the first time he’s encountered that smell, but he definitely thought it was his last. “I’m not your dad, and I’m not your boyfriend, either, or your brother. It doesn’t matter what I say to you because I don’t matter to you.”

Niall gulps, and it’s a noise that permeates the air, that drowns out the softness of the radio as Harry navigates through the snow-encrusted streets toward his flat on the other side of town, next to the university. Niall was at a party, a some sort of weird gathering with too many drugs and bottles of liquor and not enough brains and common sense, and he was outside, curled in on himself in a patch of snow next to a bush, and his lips were shaking and his teeth were chattering and his fingers were numb when Harry found him, when Harry wrapped him up in his arms and tugged him along to the vehicle.

He didn’t have any shoes on, either. Niall didn’t have his shoes, and he was shaking. He was shaking all over. 

“You can yell,” Niall suggests, and he sounds little, like a child, like a skittish toddler that’s seen a bit too much, like he’s finally trying to open up about his life to the people around him. It’s a very sad thing to see: watching somebody attempt to spread the wings that have been broken and snapped by the people he thought he could trust. “You can scream at me. You can yell and tell me I did something wrong. I know I did something wrong. I know I should be punished. I know I shouldn’t be allowed to leave without some sort of consequence. You can do that.”

Harry shakes his head. Niall needs guidance, needs someone to hold his hand and pull him out of the slums he’s somehow found himself in, but Harry can’t be that person because he’s trying to straighten his own life out, too. However, he’s quite a bit ahead in the game than Niall is, and he _wants_ to help ― he wants to help _so badly_ because he knows how it feels to be ignored, to be neglected of the assistance he needed, he craved.

“I’m not your dad, Ni,” he says again ― over and over and over in his mind; again and again and again because he can’t forget, because he can’t allow his heart and mind to become tangled up in a jumbled quarrel of what’s right and what’s definitely wrong ― to remind himself just as much as Niall. “I can’t tell you that what you did was wrong, that what you did was stupid ‘cause I’m not sure what you did in the first place. And I don’t even want to know, either. You were at a party with drugs and drinking ― I don’t want to know what happened.”

“I don’t do drugs, Harry. I don’t. I didn’t do any tonight, either. I promise that.”

Harry nods, flicks on his blinker and slows to a snail’s crawl as he takes the corner, gently turning the wheel and sliding on a thin sheet of black ice; driving in Cheshire for years has served to teach him how to control a vehicle in the brunt of winter, and he doesn’t want to say he’s good, doesn’t want to boast, but he’s quite the expert at navigating, really.

“You’re not a bad kid, Niall. You’re really not. And I know you’re not. But ― but some of the things you do make you look like a bad kid.”

“Depends on who you ask.”

Harry inhales, sharp and silent, praying that a bit of cold air will knock out the simmering heat he’s feeling in the pit of his stomach; it shouldn’t be there, anyway. Niall is a student and Harry is the librarian, and Niall is eighteen and Harry is twenty-six, and they’re miles apart, really, and ― and it shouldn’t be happening.

This ― this attraction, this adoration and total affection should _not_ be happening.

Harry can’t help his heart, though; it’s always been a relentless little thing, and it tends to find the worst people to believe in.

“What happened at the party?” he asks, slow and careful and easy, and he wants Niall to answer, wants Niall to talk to him so they can hash out what to do and why, how to do it and when, but most importantly, he just wants Niall to stop being so emotionless, to stop being so out of it. The kid is eighteen, for fuck’s sake, and he’s making Harry feel like he’s twelve again; Niall’s laugh is too pretty to not be heard, and Harry wants to know why he thinks he’s a bad person. Niall doesn’t seem to have a bad bone in his body. “What happened?”

“They ― we were drinking. We were all drinking. It was a party ― ‘course we were drinking.” It’s a start, at least. “And there were some drugs, but I didn’t take any. I don’t like what they do to people ‘cause I’ve been around it for a long time, and I’ve learned that it’s smart to learn from the mistakes that other people make, too, and not just your own. I just left the room, had a few more beers till everybody was high enough to either be mellowed out or strung up. And after that, things just got out of hand, I think.”

Harry snorts. “You think? _You think_? What do you _know_?”

Niall’s uncomfortable. Niall’s uncomfortable, and he wiggles around in the seat, buckled in tight and laying against the foggy, chilly window, and Harry wants to reach over, wants to offer his warmth to the pale-cheeked, wild-eyed kid, but he doesn’t ― he doesn’t because he can’t allow himself to fall, fall, fall.

Also, he’s driving on snow, on ice. He can’t take his hands off the wheel, can’t take his eyes off the road. Killing the both of them won’t do either of them the good they both need.  

“I remember drinking a lot of beers, and the girl I was with wanted to go upstairs, and I thought it was ‘cause she wanted to slow down for a little bit, to take a break from it all. She snorted a few lines, I think ― I think I remember somebody saying she did, but I didn’t see. But I was wrong, and she tried to touch me, and I didn’t want her to, and I left before she could take my clothes off. But ― but she tried, and that… it scared me a lot.” Niall sniffles, brings a corner of the blanket up to wipe at his nose; Harry’s knuckles are white and his thighs are aching, and he just wants Niall to be okay, really. “And I didn’t have anywhere to go, or any way to get away.”

“So you called me.”

Niall nods, hiccups and covers the noise by pressing his mouth against his shoulder. “So I called you.”

“What was her name? The girl who tried to touch you.”

Niall shakes his head. “I don’t want to get her in trouble, Harry. She was high and drunk. I don’t want to get her in trouble over something that probably wouldn’t have happened had she not been fucked up.”

Oh. Oh, Niall cursing is something Harry does not like at all.

“Why not?” Harry asks, demands as his eyes cross, as he struggles to find the right area to drive in. “She tried to force you to do something you didn’t want. There’s no guarantee she won’t try something like that with somebody else while being completely sober. Why would you not want to get somebody like that in trouble? She deserves everything she’ll get.”

“I know her,” Niall insists, slow and timid, and Harry’s scaring Niall, but he doesn’t care. He just _doesn’t care_. “I know her, Harry. And it’s mostly my fault, anyway. I lead her on. I let her think I wanted to do something when I really didn’t. I should’ve been clearer with her.”

“That’s fucking bullshit,” Harry seethes, and Niall flinches, jerks ever closer to the door. Harry sighs; he isn’t going to hit Niall, wouldn’t ever dream of it. “That is shit, Niall. It’s not your fault. You didn’t force her to try and rape you ― for fuck’s sake, you didn’t do anything to deserve an attempt at rape!”

“You weren’t there.”

Harry sighs again; Niall’s got him stumped now, that’s for sure. Harry doesn’t know what all went on, doesn’t know what Niall did or tried to do, and he can’t very well be shouting out objections when he doesn’t have the whole truth. Niall’s not going to tell him the whole truth, either. Boys like him are tough and trouble, but they’re so scared to let anybody else down that they’ll keep it inside till they blow. Harry’s been there before ― he _knows_.

He knows because he saw it ― he knows because he was once a boy like Niall, too, and it never ends well, really.

“What about your friends, Ni?” Harry knows Niall has a few friends from school that aren’t in the group he was hanging out with earlier, knows they’re good, smart, intelligent, wishes Niall would’ve stuck with them tonight instead of adding on to his already large reputation. “D’you not try to call them?”

“I did.” Niall nods, and he’s looking at Harry now, burning his gaze into Harry’s cheek, and Harry can’t meet his eyes because he’s driving, because he’s trying to keep himself and Niall alive. “I did, and the ones who answered couldn’t be bothered with me. Said I was too much work, and I wasn’t worth it.”

Harry’s heart drops, and he tastes a disgusting bit of bile rise up in his throat from deep within his chest; maybe Niall’s friends aren’t the greatest, maybe Niall doesn’t have any friends he can rely on. Then again, maybe it’s Niall’s fault he’s alone, maybe he’s too much trouble for other people to put up with, like they’ve seemed to tell him.

But Harry knows that’s a lie as soon as it pops up in his mind. He’s seen Niall munching on outdated Snickers bars that he bought with the last bit of change he had, seen Niall helping two little kids cross the street to their grandmother’s house so nothing bad would happen in the midst of rush-hour traffic, seen Niall cease his studying and hand his textbook over to a girl who he thought needed it more with a smile on his face. Niall is a good boy ― boys like him do not deserve to be alone. Nobody deserves to be alone.

And ― and Harry will make sure Niall’s never alone again.

“Why do you let yourself hang around people like that?” Harry asks, and his days in university are coming back to him as he quizzes Niall over and over, as he tries to make sense of the mess that’s been made. It’s funny, really, that he’s tearing Niall completely apart when he was in Niall’s shoes not too long ago. He got better, though, and he hopes Niall can, too. “Why would you want to be with people who probably can’t care less about you if you tried?”

“Because they understand a whole lot more than other people ever will.”

-

“I have a guest room, but there’s no fixings on the bed at the moment ― I’ve not had enough time to buy any, and what I have is so eaten by moths that it’s kind of pitiful, really ― so is it okay if you crash on the couch tonight?”

Niall rubs his eyes. He’s still wrapped up in the stinky, mildew-smelling blanket from the depths of Harry’s trunk ― might as well have been hell, really ― and his face is white and his nose is red and his hair is flat with wetness, and he’s still shivering, still shaking, but Harry turned the heat up when they walked in and it won’t take long for Niall to get warm again. Hopefully.

Hopefully the chill Niall’s wracked with won’t stick around for long.

“S’okay with me.” Niall smiles ― or, he attempts to, at least, but it’s kind of a pitiful try that makes Harry want to hurl, that makes Harry want to curl in on himself and scream till his lungs are bleeding with the colors he sees leaking out of Niall’s pretty, pretty eyes. He’s not felt this sick since he left Cheshire. “Right now, I don’t care if I gotta sleep on the floor. I just want to rest.”

Harry chews on the inside of his cheek; he’s got no self-control ― _absolutely none_. And maybe that’s why he was always in trouble back home: he never listened to his mum, never listened to his sister, and maybe, if he would have, it would’ve diverted a lot of the pain he went through.

“Is that where you would’ve slept? On the floor?” he asks as he opens the closet door that’s hidden in the corridor, as he feels around with the tips of his fingers to find the few spare blankets he was able to scavenge; his eyes are locked on Niall’s lips, on Niall’s face, and he doesn’t want to remove them, ever, because Niall’s mouth is pink and his cheeks are red and he’s precious, so _precious,_ and Harry wants to show Niall what it’s like to be cherished by somebody who actually cares. “Would you have slept on the floor if I hadn’t answered?”

“Probably. Either that, or outside where you found me. ” It’s funny, kind of, because Niall doesn’t hesitate to answer, doesn’t hesitate to shrug his shoulders as if sleeping on the floor is normal, as if sleeping in the snow is normal, as if being refused a bed and blankets is something he’s had to deal with all his life. “S’not as bad as it sounds.”

“You’re right.” Harry grabs three blankets, and they’re thick, too, threaded together by the nimble fingers of his grandmamma, who passed away a few years ago. When he was younger, he and Gemma would build forts out of the thick quilts, would string the corners up through the brackets of their shared bunk bed; there’s a few rips in the fabric, several stringy pieces of yarn hanging low, but they’re warm and Harry will never get rid of the memories they bring. “It’s a lot worse than it sounds.”

“Harry ―”

“How did you get my number, Niall?”

Niall sighs, tightens the thin blanket around his shoulders and steps to the side so Harry can pass, so Harry can lead him out of the corridor and through the kitchen and passed the bar that separates the living room and the small dining area.

“It wasn’t very hard.” Niall’s feet are light as they follow, as they keep up with Harry’s purposeful strides; he’s shorter, too, though not by much, and he’s slimmer, more narrow and not nearly as broad-shouldered. Harry could wrap himself completely around Niall if he wanted ― and he does, you know. Want to, that is. “I got it from Louis.”

Harry brows crinkle. “Louis Tomlinson?” he asks to confirm his suspicions, and looks over his shoulder to watch Niall nod, to watch Niall lick his lips before offering a tentative smile. “The fucking dean of admissions gave you my phone number?”

“Well, yeah. He and I have known each other for a while. He’s the older brother I’ve always wanted. He would’ve picked me up, too, but he was tied up with his son for the night.”

_Fucking Louis._

Harry lets it go, throws his thoughts out of his mind and unfolds one of the blankets, spreading it out on the couch; the sofa is leather ― his step daddy has loads of money, mind you, and his mum didn’t want him moving away from home without a proper place, either, which is kind of skewed considering she’s part of the reason he left in the first place ― and it’s cold to the touch, and Niall will never get warm if he’s to lay on an icicle, and Harry can’t have that.

He just wants Niall to be okay, okay? That’s all he wants ― if Niall is okay, if he’s warm and not hurting and relatively stable, Harry can sleep without nightmares, without fits of terror.

“I’m sorry.”

Harry shakes his head, steps back and motions for Niall to lay down. “Don’t be. I’m glad you called. I’m glad I was able to get you away before something really bad happened.” He smiles, and it’s tiny and forced, but at least it’s real. At least he’s not faking ― at least he doesn’t have to fake around Niall. “Boys like you are the people who are going to run the world someday, and I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“Boys like me?” Niall wets his lips again, and his tongue is pink and so, so slick with spit that it’s sopping, and he really needs to stop being so accidentally sensual because Harry’s self-control is already dwindling down to nothing and he’s not properly gotten off since that late-night fuck with Zayn, a museum curator, seven months ago. That was a wild time. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Harry steps closer to Niall, puts his hands on top of Niall’s where they’re at, pressed against his chest and holding the corners of the blankets together above his heart. “It means whatever you want it to,” he replies, eases his fingers between Niall’s and tugs, and the blanket unwraps and falls, and Niall’s clothes are wet and sticking to his body like a second skin. His shirt is soaked and his jeans are so full of liquid they’re hanging off his hips, showing a little bit too much skin. “If you take your clothes off, I’ll make sure to wash and dry them so you can have something clean to wear in the morning.”

“I have school, and you have work. I don’t think they’ll be cleaned by then.”

“We’re not going,” Harry replies, and it’s a decision he makes as he speaks, one that he’ll have to phone Louis to relay the info on. “I’ll call in, and make sure your absence is excused, too. I don’t think either of us are in the right mind to attempt to be normal human beings tomorrow.”

Niall nods, and his hands go the hem of his shirt; he tugs it up, wiggles out of the dark fabric and tosses it to land on the blanket he was wrapped up in. Next is his jeans, and he undoes the belt, pulls down the zip and slips them off his fleshy thighs; he’s pale and free of the ink that colors Harry’s body like a layer of protection, and Harry wants to kiss the flesh, wants to lick and bite and soothe away whatever ache Niall has with his tongue, with his lips, with his hands.

Harry doesn’t feel bad for looking, either. He’s not touched and been touched in a long time, and Niall is so, so different from everything he’s ever known, and he looks almost good enough to eat, almost good enough to devour. Boys like Niall are why Harry’s the man he is today.

Niall’s eyes are blue, and with the bit of light streaming in from the kitchen, it looks like there’s sparkles in the color, looks like there’s gold and gray and silver and green. “Why are you being so nice to me?” he asks, slanting his head, and he’s cute, _so cute_ , that Harry can’t help it when he reaches out, can’t help it when he tugs Niall’s almost-naked body into his for a hug that makes Harry melt.

And Niall smells good, surprising, like pineapples and cinnamon, and it’s a weird amalgamation that makes Harry to go wild, that makes him bite his lip as his hands move low on Niall’s bare, fleshy back; his fingers dig into the bit of extra skin at the top of Niall’s waist, and the noises that want to leave his mouth are dirty, are filthy and primal.

But the filthier the better, as they say.

“Harry?” Niall’s arms move, and his hands are at Harry’s hips then; his fingernails are blunt as they dig into Harry’s skin, as they grab for a tether to keep himself grounded, and why he’s taking off, why he’s soaring, Harry doesn’t know. _Harry doesn’t know_. “Harry, why?”

“I swore to myself that I would be there for boys like you because nobody was there when I needed it the most.”

-

It’s 5:48 now, dark as ink out with feathery snow still falling and covering everything, and Harry’s been tossing and turning around in bed for nearly an hour now, and he’s as far away from sleep, as far away from dreaming about mannequin vampires as he possibly can be.

Niall crashed not long ago, and he’s snoring softly on the couch now, wrapped up in two blankets and cuddled into the back of the sofa; his face is clear when he’s sleeping, and his eyes flutter sometimes, and it was hard for Harry to pull himself away from Niall, hard for Harry to walk out of the living room and down the corridor to his own bed now that he knows what it feels like to hold Niall in his arms.  

He just wants Niall to be okay, just wants Niall to be safe and secure in who and what he is.

But it’s not his place to help Niall get better, really. Nobody wanted ― nobody knew how to help Harry when he was losing his mind, when he was losing his soul, and Harry knows how to help Niall, knows how to make it all okay ― or close to being okay, at least ― but he doesn’t want to for fear that he’ll mess Niall up even worse. Everybody is different, and Niall doesn’t necessarily need what Harry needed to get better; it’s a high-risk action that Harry doesn’t want to put himself in, and he isn’t a coward ― he’ll admit he’s scared.

He’s worried, too, though. And he’ll probably never stop worrying, either ― even when he’s old, even when he’s gray, even when he’s married, even when his kids have grown and moved off and he’s ready to go himself, he’ll probably never stop worrying about the little boy, about the baby boy he has on his couch.

Boys like Niall aren’t easily forgotten, and men like Harry won’t let them go. They’re like a tattoo, in the way that they get under your skin to stay; people like them are ivy on the trees, are mold on the decaying buildings.

Art, but nasty, unwanted art. Still art, though ― still there, still seen, still painted on, still wiped away, still stained when every bit is thought to have been destroyed.

Boys like Niall, and men like Harry, and guys like them are something ― something great, something ugly, something disgusting, something beautiful. They’re _something_.  

There’s a noise then, and Harry’s pulled out of his thoughts; his door opens, and the corridor light leaks in, and he rolls over to see that Niall is standing in the way, wrapped up in a blanket. His hair has dried, and it’s a blond-brown mess on his head, sticking up at random angles as if he’s been playing with stick electricity; there’s a little bit of dried drool on his cheek, and his nose is red and his eyes are little and hooded, and he looks adorable, looks like a baby ― like a baby boy.

Like Harry’s baby boy.

_Oh my._

“Niall?”

 “Hi,” he says, and his voice is thick with sleep; his accent is heavy, and it’s kind of hard to decipher what words he’s using, too, but Harry really likes the way he sounds, so gruff and gravelly. Just makes Harry wonder what Niall sounds like when his mouth is full, when he himself is full. “Can I sleep in here with you?”

Harry blinks, turns over onto his back and reaches out to flick on the lamp; he gulps as Niall is completely illuminated now, swallows back the arousal and palms at his hardening dick to ease the pressure that grows, that mounts as he sees Niall’s pale legs, as he sees Niall’s cute toes, as he sees Niall’s pouted lips and tight boxers and fleshy hips and hairy knees.

“Why?” he asks, breathy and warm.

“I don’t want to be by myself right now.”

Harry nods then, deciding that he can’t leave Niall alone, deciding that it wouldn’t be very beneficial for either of them, and scoots over, patting the space next to him. Niall smiles, drops the blanket and kicks it out of the way to shut the door; he comes closer, and his underwear is only a tight pair of boxer briefs that don’t hide nearly enough, and Harry wants to lick at the bulge he sees there, wants to drag his teeth along the curve of Niall’s cock because it looks too appetizing, too flavorful to not have a taste.

It’s intense, too, because the briefs are white and still kind of wet, and the head of Niall’s cock is pink, dark and deep and delicious-looking, and Harry’s mind is wild. He is going _wild_.

And he thinks Niall kind of wants to go wild with him, too.

Niall lays beside him, and Harry turns down the light, and Niall’s body is a hot weight, a burning furnace next to him, and he tries to ignore his need, tries to ignore his want, but he rolls over, scoots close and lays his head on Niall’s chest, wraps his arm around Niall’s waist and holds him close, holds him still, holds him so it’s known that neither are going to go anywhere.

If he can’t fuck Niall, if he can’t strip Niall bare and lick and suck and bite at every little blemish and perfect flaw, he’s going to take support Niall in the sweetest way ― if he can’t have Niall in the way he wants, he’s going to take care of Niall in the way that he needs to be taken care of.

Harry’s a good guy. Harry is a nice person, and Niall needs help. He’ll help him.

Yeah. Harry will help Niall.

“Harry?” Niall’s hand moves, and his fingers land on top of Harry’s head, and they scratch at Harry’s scalp, twirling around in the snarled tendrils; his shower last night was lukewarm, and he went to bed without drying his hair properly or brushing it through. Harry purrs, mewls like a kitten, moving into Niall’s touch and raking his blunt nails along the fleshy, warm skin at Niall’s hips; Harry’s always had a thing for love handles, always loved grabbing on to the extra skin as he fucks inside, deep and hard and long, over and over and over. “Are you all right?”

He doesn’t want to put Niall in that position yet, doesn’t want to scare Niall off and make Niall worse than he already is. He’ll take his time, and it’ll only be all the more sweet when it happens.

Because it will. Happen, that is. It _will_ happen.

“There’s a position that’s been open at the university for a while,” Harry announces, and his lips are so close to Niall’s nipple, so close to complete savagery, and Harry’s doing his best to hold himself back. “It’s kind of like an aid, really. In the library. There’s loads of work that needs to be done, and instead of hiring another staff member, I thought it would be better to gather a few students up to help out, and in doing that you’ll earn service hours and get paid under the table, too. By me, ‘course, ‘cause they’ve upped my pay quite a bit from last year’s librarian.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Niall asks, massaging Harry’s head, and it’s not weird, either. It’s not weird because it feels good, because it feels so right, and if they’re moving fast, if they’re jumping into a pit of nothing but sensation, so be it. If they’re going down, Harry wants to go down together.

“Because I want you there with me.”

Niall’s body shudders then, and Harry presses a quick kiss to Niall’s chest, allows himself a swift lick to Niall’s nipple because his self-control is really, really bad ― and when it comes to Niall, it’s worse. It’s shot all to hell.

Harry’s not felt like this in a long, long time. And he doesn’t know if that’s good or bad.

But that’s okay. Harry is Alice, and Niall is the Cheshire cat, and the hotness between them is the rabbit hole to total euphoria, to total completion, and jumping down, plunging into the darkness is okay. _It’s okay_.

“I kinda want to be there with you, too.”

Harry sighs, moves his leg and parts Niall’s with his knee, settling into a more comfortable position as Niall situates Harry’s head on his bicep ― and they’re hot and close and sweating, and the proximity is making Harry’s adrenaline wane into nothing but exhaustion. “We’ll talk more about it when we wake up, okay? Right now let’s just sleep. ‘M too tired, baby boy.”

-

“You’re pretty when you sleep.”

Harry opens one eye, sees that Niall’s fresh face is right in front of his, and sighs as he blinks, as he slings his arm out and reaches for Niall’s hips, pulling him closer.

“Only when I sleep?” he asks, whispers the teasing words in Niall’s ear, and he doesn’t bite the lobe, doesn’t lick at the skin because Niall isn’t scared now, isn’t heavy with worry ― Niall’s eyes are bright, are the color of the sky on a cloudless day, and Harry doesn’t want to make storms form inside of Niall because they’re mean, because they’re destructive machines that take and take and take and never give.

And Harry doesn’t want to give Niall that memory of himself when he eventually goes.

Niall gulps, tilts his neck and allows Harry to move down, to nuzzle into the musky warmness of his skin. “No ― not just when you’re sleeping,” he replies, stutters, struggles to get out, and Harry chuckles, presses his lips against Niall’s Adam’s apple, wraps his mouth around the lump and sucks, sucks, sucks. _Yum_. “You’re pretty all the time, even when you’re wearing those weird shirts and ugly boots. But ― but now, you’re just so, _so pretty_ , and… and I want to tell you that.”

Harry pulls away, blinks the sleep out of his eyes. Niall’s face is red and there’s dried drool still crusted on his cheek; he’s not shaved lately, and his chin is prickly, scratchy, and his eyes are big and blue, _so blue_ , and his lips are wet and his nose is pink, and he’s beautiful. Niall is breathtakingly gorgeous to Harry.

Harry lets out a puff of air against Niall’s throat. “Work with me at the university, Niall,” Harry says, and it’s not a suggestion, really, more like a demand, a command, an order ― one that Niall will obey, will abide by.

Niall nods and rolls onto his back, allowing Harry to move up, to perch above him with his hands on either side of Niall’s head. “Okay,” he replies, smiles, reaches his hands up to wrap his fingers around Harry’s wrists.

Licking his lips, Harry flips over on top of Niall, straddling his hips, and he doesn’t know what he’s doing but he loves it. “And stay with me, too. Stay here with me.”

Niall blinks. “Stay with you?”

“Yeah.” Harry nods, leans down and puts his nose against Niall’s; they’re close, so close, and Harry’s eyes are crossed as he stares into Niall’s pretty blue gaze. “Stay with me, and I’ll take care of you. Let me take care of you.”

“Why?” Niall’s quiet in his question, slow and smooth, but they’re close, and his lips graze across Harry’s, igniting a fire in Harry’s chest that burns and burns and burns till he can feel it in his soul, till he can feel it in his groin. “Why do you want me to stay with you?”

“Already told you.” Harry moves to the side, puts his lips next to Niall’s ear. “I want you here with me. I meant that. I wasn’t lying when I said that ― I really, really meant that.”

Niall swallows, and Harry can’t see his face, can’t digest what Niall’s thinking, but Niall’s wriggling beneath him, adjusting their hips so their groins are aligned, so Harry’s morning wood is causing Niall to harden, too, and maybe Niall wants Harry just as much as Harry wants Niall.

And ― and who’s Harry to not give Niall what he wants?

“Okay,” Niall replies, agrees, and Harry’s stomach flutters and he’s flying ― he’s flying, and Niall is, too, and they’re chasing the stars in one another’s eyes as Harry pulls back to meet Niall’s smiling face, to meet Niall’s sparkling gaze. “Okay, I’ll stay with you.”

“Yeah?”

Niall nods. “Yes, Harry. _Yes_.”

And Harry kind of can’t help himself then, can’t tell himself no as he leans down, as he puts his lips against Niall’s, as he steals Niall’s breath and fixes the loss with his own air. Niall’s shocked, and his body is tight, but Harry’s eyes are closed, and he feels Niall’s eyelashes flutter, feels them fall, and then Niall is kissing Harry back, moving his lips and mouthing around, and it doesn’t matter that they’re only just now speaking with one another, doesn’t matter that they’ve woken up moments ago, doesn’t matter that their breath stinks or that they’re skipping out on their responsibilities or that neither of them have any clue as to what they’re doing.

None of that matters ― none of it matters because Niall is sighing, because Harry is moaning, because Niall is whining and writhing and reaching for more and more and more. And Harry’s giving it to him, feeding Niall his tongue and licking all around Niall’s mouth, slurping and sucking, and the noises are dirty, are hot, and Harry’s hard, leaking and prickling and on fire, and Niall is bucking, is rutting and humping and thrusting, and ― and fuck, but Harry isn’t sure if he’s going to be able to stop now that he’s started, now that he’s had his first taste of Niall.

Niall pulls back, and the string of saliva that connects their mouths falls against Niall’s neck, and Harry ducks down, sucks the spit up and hums as his lips curl around Niall’s Adam’s apple to kiss and suckle at the flesh, and he hopes he’s leaving a mark behind because Niall is his.

Already. Niall is his already, and he’s Niall’s already, too.

“I’ll be good for you, Harry. I’ll be a good boy for you.”

-

“You can touch me, you know.”

They’re sat in the kitchen now, after a rigorous round of kisses and careful touches in the darkness ― and it’s a little bitty thing of a space, really, with an island in the middle and a bar that separates it from the living area that has semi-empty cupboards stacked above; there’s an aging refrigerator and electric stove and mean microwave and water-splashed sink, and it’s okay, you know, even though it’s shit at times ― and Harry’s at the counter, digging through his cabinets to find the cocoa mix he _knows_ he bought last week and Niall’s perched on one of the two mismatching stools twiddling his thumbs, and it was silent but now it isn’t.

Now all Harry can think of is Niall’s sticky moans that painted the walls and streaked the ceiling and fogged the window of his room only an hour before, and it’s so pretty and so soft and so lovely.

“I did touch you,” Harry replies, tries not to show Niall is frown as he finally ― _finally_ ― finds the damned mix. “I mean, earlier, in the bed, I ― I did touch you. I kissed you all over and ― I did touch you, Niall. I did.”

He did. He touched Niall, over and over and over, and it felt good, felt nice, felt out of this world and over the stars; Niall’s skin is soft and dry and hard and soft and hairy at points, and his nipples are two of the prettiest little buds Harry’s ever seen, and he smells like mint and spice and tastes like strawberries and lemonade.

“You know what I mean.”

Harry’s shoulders tense; he drops the mix and the lid falls off, and powder puffs out, billows into his face and covers the counter smugly. A fire, a rage ignites in Harry’s stomach, but he isn’t mad at Niall ― he’s upset at himself for allowing a fucking _kid_ to have this big of an effect on him, but he isn’t mad at Niall.

Oddly enough, though, he isn’t going to tell Niall no.

How could he tell Niall no ― how could he tell a boy like Niall no?

“Do you want me to?” Harry asks, shuts the door of the cupboard and turns around to face Niall, ignoring the spilled mix for a later time, and he’s dressed in a too-long crimson sweater that hangs to his mid-thigh and short white briefs and long black socks that are patterned with animated stars, and his innocence is a rainbow of color behind Harry’s opened eyes and Harry can feel flowers bloom and flutter and billow out in his chest, in his heart ― the colors in Niall’s eyes match the hues in Harry’s soul. “Do you want me to touch you like that?”

“Like what?” Niall asks, wets his lips; his hair is kind of damp and flat, disheveled and pushed up at odd intervals, and Harry is helplessly falling for Niall’s easy innocence already, and he prays it isn’t an act because he’s been screwed over one too many times and he can’t handle another bout of avid heartbreak. He barely made it out alive. “How do you want to touch me?”

Harry walks forward on wobbly knees, tries to focus on the chill of the tiled floor instead of the heat that’s growing in his stomach, that’s igniting a fire of passion in his groin that he knows is capable of destroying everything, and he’ll only smile as everything falls to the ground in a pile of ash and rubble.

“I want to touch you so you’ll feel good,” Harry says, and his lips twitch as he sees Niall’s red-pink blush rise, beginning on his pale neck and making its way up till he’s a pretty, pretty pansy color, mimicking the hue of the flowers in Harry’s tummy. “I want to kiss you till you can’t get my taste out of your mouth; I want you to listen to every single noise I make for you till it’s all that you’re able to hear for days ― I want to touch you till you can’t get the feeling of my fingertips off of your body no matter how hard you scrub in the shower right next to me.”  

“I won’t scrub,” Niall replies, and his blue, blue eyes are wide and his lips are wet and his mouth is open and ― and Niall’s tongue is a sinful instrument that will surely soothe Harry’s billowing passion. “I won’t ever try to get your touch off of my body ‘cause I’ve not wanted anything as much as I want you in my life.”

“Why do you want me so much?” Harry asks, reaches out and runs his fingers through Niall’s damp hair; the smell of green apples wafts up, swirls around them in an invisible cloud, and Harry smiles slightly. He’s only been in one relationship ― casual fucks here and there suffice, but they don’t count; flings aren’t anything compared to the years he’s shared with the girl that ripped him to pieces and left him to rot ― but he knows he has quite the possessive streak. “I’m nothing special. Why do you want me, baby boy?”

Niall’s eyes shut and his lashes are a darkness on his cheeks as they flutter, as they shake, and they remind Harry of butterfly wings. “You treat me like you want to help me,” he answers, and it’s a whisper, a gentle sentence that makes everything in the world look a little bit less pretty compared to Niall’s radiant beauty and cracked interior. “For so long, people have looked at me like they pity me, and you don’t. You look at me like you want to help me, like you know I can be more than I am.”

“I do.” Harry nods, twines his fingers in Niall’s hair and jerks back till Niall’s eyes are open and all he can see is Harry’s face, is Harry looming over him like a god watching his most precious, most prized creation. “I do want to help you, and I know you can be better than you.”

“’Cause you’ve been where I am before.”

Harry doesn’t nod, doesn’t say a word, but his silence is acquiescence enough, and it isn’t like he tried to hide it from Niall, either. Niall is smart and Harry is quiet, and it isn’t hard to read Harry’s mind because he tends to wear his heart on his sleeve when he’s in front of somebody he knows he can trust.

And he can trust Niall. Niall has been hurt, and Niall is still hurting, and Harry can trust Niall; their pieces are jagged, are sharp and acute, but they fit well enough together to showcase a picture worthy of being seen.

“And you got better,” Niall continues, and his eyes are big and blue, and there’s an ocean of emotions inside that Harry wants to drown in. “Whatever funk it was that you were in, you got out of.”

“You can, too.”

“I don’t know how,” Niall replies, bringing his hands up; his fingers grab at Harry’s fleshy hips, digging into the thick skin there, and Harry wets his lips because he likes the pain, because he likes it rough, and he’d rather Niall leave bloody marks on his skin opposed to him breaking Niall apart by his lust. “And you can help me. I want you to help me because I don’t trust anybody else.”

This is all so, so quick, but ― but time is a matter of opinion, and Harry doesn’t love Niall. He just wants to fuck Niall, again and again and again, over and over and over.  

“I am helping you.” Harry’s brows knit and his fingers scratch at Niall’s scalp, eliciting a tender purr of satisfaction that reverberates in Niall’s chest, that echoes in the tightness of the kitchen. “I am going to help you, and even after you’re better, I don’t think I’ll ever stop.”

“I want you to touch me, Harry,” Niall says, again, and his fingers are rebellious little things as they wiggle beneath Harry’s shirt, as they trace and touch and tickle at Harry’s clammy skin with a want that rivals Harry’s mounting desire. “I want you to show me what it’s like to be with a man who knows what he’s doing, who knows how to take care somebody like me.”

-

Harry shuts his eyes, slips his fingers beneath the hem of Niall’s too-long sweater, pushing it up, up, up till it’s a piece of gathered fabric around Niall’s hickey-smeared neck, scratching his jaw all across Niall’s sensitive, pale skin. He’s got Niall laid out on the island in the kitchen; the lights are all turned off ― Niall’s never been seen naked before, voluntarily, is what he said as Harry pushed him back and delved his tongue inside the hollow at the base of his neck, and the insecurities of adolescence haven’t left him yet, it seems, and Harry will do anything to make Niall feel comfortable to make up for all the times Harry himself wasn’t okay with what was going on in and around him ― and the only illumination is coming from the sun as it shines through the blinds from outside.

And it’s giving Niall a glow, a certain filter of precious perfection: he’s golden around the edges, and his skin is white and glistening, and he’s sparkling in a way that flowers that bloom for only a day do, in a way that rainbows break apart even the nastiest of storms, in the way that the dew of the early-morning kisses the ground and shows the sun right where to shine first.

Harry’s never seen anything like it. Niall’s pretty fucked up, yeah, and he’s not the best-looking lad Harry’s ever seen, either, but there’s just something about him that Harry can’t deny he likes, that Harry can’t deny is dragging him in quickly.

Niall is beautiful ― Niall is beautiful and intelligent; his laugh is contagious and his smiles are made out of the toughest diamonds and his selflessness reminds Harry of walking on sand without any shoes and allowing the ocean to wash away the dust from his feet.

Harry’s in deep already, and he doesn’t even know Niall.

Harry puts his face against Niall’s chest, drags his chin along the contours, and ― and Niall giggles, brings his hand up and laces his fingers through Harry’s hair as he continues to laugh, continues to writhe around on the table like a giddy little kid high on the sugar from the suckers he’s suckled on.

“Sorry,” Harry says, quiet and careful against Niall’s sensitive skin. “I ― why are you so damn ticklish?”

Niall shrugs, and his giggles are a treat in the darkness that Harry feasts upon like an animal, like a beast. “I can’t help it,” he replies, and the wolfish grin on his lips is pretty, pretty, pretty. “Why is your beard so ticklish?”

Harry laughs, proving the point that Niall’s laugh is infectious. “It’s not a beard, baby boy,” he muses, moves back and folds his arms over Niall’s tummy, resting his scratchy chin on his hands as he stares up at Niall’s smiling, blushing face. “This is a bad idea, Niall.”

Niall’s smile doesn’t fall; instead it grows, and Harry’s awe-struck, mystified at Niall’s strength to stay who he is even in the mess of it all. “I know,” he says, nods and agrees. “But I want it, and you want it, too, and we’re safe here. We _are_ safe here, Harry.”

“Are we?”

Niall nods again. “Yes,” he says, and the force behind that one word grabs Harry’s heart and shakes him to the bone; he never realized Niall was tough enough, was secure enough to make Harry question everything about himself. He can’t say that he doesn’t like it, either. “Are you okay?”

Refusing to acknowledge Niall’s question, Harry just blinks, continues to stare into Niall’s eyes as if they hold the key to every question ever asked.

Niall sighs. “Nobody cares about me, and everybody that cares about you knows you’re alive and breathing, if a little bit exhausted,” Niall continues, and Harry hates that Niall puts himself down like that. He’s just as special as all of those other kids in the world, regardless of what he’s told. He is a fucking _gem_. “We’re safe right now, and we can do whatever we want. We can be whoever we want.”

“Don’t say that.”

Niall’s brows furrow. “Say what?”

“Don’t ever say that nobody cares about you.”

Niall blinks, licks his pansy pink lips. “It’s the truth ―”

“Bullshit.” Harry rears away then, grabs at Niall’s shoulders and pulls him up, too, to the edge of the table; he knocks Niall’s knees apart, steps between his thighs, and the warmth Harry finds feels too good to be true. He’s afraid it probably is. “I… I care about you, Niall. I don’t even know you, but I know enough, and ― and I care about you.”

“Harry ―”

“So don’t say nobody cares about you ever again. Don’t fucking say nobody cares about you when I do. I care a lot for you, baby boy. I care so much that I’m letting you stay in my home with me.”

“Because you don’t want to be alone.”

Harry’s fingers dig into Niall’s fleshy hips, and his nails are blunt but they’re sure to leave behind crescent-shaped bruises of mindless possession. “I’ve been alone for years, Niall,” he says, and it’s a menacing whisper that tingles in the air like vivid electricity. “You’ve been alone, too. We can be good together. I’ll take care of you, and you’ll make me less lonely, and we can be really good together.”

“That’s it then?” Niall slants his head, blinks his eyes; Harry’s grip on him is rough, is demanding, but he isn’t flinching, isn’t showing any sign of pain. Just what in the hell has this little boy been through? “That’s our deal? You take care of me and I keep you from being lonely?”

Oh. Oh, it’s easy to put into words, then, isn’t it? Niall’s understanding exactly what’s going through Harry’s mind, isn’t he?

Good. Harry doesn’t want to give Niall false hope that what’s going to happen between them is anything more than strictly pleasure and security for the both of them.  

“Yeah.” Harry nods, eases his grasp on Niall’s waist; he looks down, sees that there are bloody bruises appearing, colored purple and red and yellow and green. Harry’s oddly satisfied at the marks he’s left behind. “Yeah, that’s our deal.”

Niall smirks, reaches his finger out and drags it along Harry’s lip, sticking it just inside Harry’s mouth, where Harry tongues at the tip deliciously so. “Take me to bed, then, so we can seal the deal.”

-

Niall’s skin tastes like salt and soap and sweet addiction as Harry drags his lips across the flesh; goosebumps are growing, are flashing about as Harry’s fingertips trail over the sensitive bits of Niall’s body, like the crevices behind his ears and the protruding bones of his hips and the veiny marks on his wrists and the bends of his knees and the freckled spots on the top of his shoulders.

Niall’s body is like a work of art: there’s temples of flesh and mountains of meat and forests of coarse hair and rivers of blue-purple-red-green-yellow veins and clouds of mismatched freckles and oceans of deep cerulean eyes and petals of pansy pink lips and fields of blond-brown dye and waterfalls of sticky saliva cascading down his cheeks.

He’s perfect. And he needs to know that before it’s too late, before he’s too far gone.

“You’re perfect, Niall,” Harry gasps, breathes against Niall’s bare chest as he grazes his lips along the soft contours and plains and edges. “You’re absolutely stunning, baby boy.”

“Why do you call me that?” Niall asks, combs his fingers through Harry’s hair as Harry goes down, down, down, kissing along the waistband of the wet, white briefs that are showing a little bit too much of Niall’s pretty, pretty cock.

“Because you’re my baby boy,” Harry replies, and it’s reason enough as he sticks his fingers beneath the waist, as he prompts Niall to raise his cute bum and drags them off, revealing Niall’s length. And it’s a cute, angry-tipped cock ― it’s a bit thick and quite long, and the vein that runs the length looks delicious, and there’s a dollop of precum on the head that Harry knows is going to be so fucking good on his tongue. “And I’m going to treat you like the princess you are.”

Niall mewls low in his throat, widens his legs and allows Harry to fit his shoulders comfortably between his thighs. “Oh my God,” Niall hisses, moans, and Harry smirks. _Not God ―_ me. “Can ― can I call you daddy?”

Harry gulps, swallows down the rush of arousal that colors his vision red as all his blood rushes to his cock. “Fuck, baby boy,” he groans, rolls his eyes into the back of his head; he leans down, sniffs at the spicy smell of Niall’s prick before licking at the cum on the tip, and it’s just as yummy as Harry thought it would be. He’ll gladly feast on Niall till they both lose it all. “Yes, you can. Yes ― _fuck_ , call me daddy, baby boy _. Call me daddy_.”

And ― and Niall does. Niall calls Harry daddy as if his mouth was made for it.

Harry grunts, lets out a noise that tickles the back of his spine; he wraps his lips around the tip, flicks his tongue into the slit, over and over and over, to get every last bit of the sapid taste of Niall’s savory precum. Niall arches, moves his hands from Harry’s hair and onto the shirt he’s wearing, and his fingers grab and bunch at the fabric, pulling it up till it’s collected around Harry’s shoulders and neck in an awkward, annoying fashion.

He leans back, allows Niall’s dick out of his mouth with a pop, and grabs his shirt, jerks it over his head and throws it somewhere or another; he stands, fiddles with his belt and undoes his jeans, shoving them down his thighs and kicking them off his feet. He isn’t going to fuck Niall ― no, not yet; he’s out of lube and lotion and condoms, anyway, and he doesn’t want to go about intercourse like a wild beast, really, because it isn’t his intention to hurt Niall at all ― but he needs to relieve a bit of the tension in his groin lest he implodes.

Niall pushes up onto his elbows, gives Harry a goofily-sultry, hotly innocent look as he eyes Harry’s body from tip to top and all over again. “Is that for me, Daddy?” he asks, slants his head to the side and pouts his lips, and Harry wants to ravish and wreck Niall so, so much, but he calms his racing libido for fear of scaring Niall away. “It’s very big and pretty.”

_Fuck._

Niall’s a kid ― he isn’t supposed to be so fucking enticing to Harry.

“It’s for you,” Harry confirms, palming at the bulge in his underwear; Niall’s eyes are wide as they watch Harry’s ministrations on his cock, and Harry’s fire is an igniting flame that’s sure to burn them both down. “It’s all for you, baby boy.”

He rockets forward then, bounces onto the bed and flushes his body with Niall’s; their lips meet and hold in a kiss that’s full of tongue and teeth and swapped spit. Niall’s fingers scratch along Harry’s back and Harry’s hands are hard and harsh as they drag down Niall’s succulent, scrumptious body.

Harry pulls back, eats at the saliva that bridges their lips; his spit is smeared across Niall’s mouth and the wetness is shining in the dim glow of the bedside lamp. “Everything I do is for you now,” he announces, blinks, leans back down and presses his lips to Niall’s nose in a chaste kiss that’s full of all the promises he can’t say aloud. “Whatever you need, whatever you want ― just ask me. I’ll give it all to you.”

Niall wiggles, raises his hips and grinds his bare erection against Harry’s clothed length. “I want to come in your mouth, Daddy,” Niall replies, and the filthy words he speaks does something to Harry’s system, shatters every ounce of coherent thought. “I want to watch you eat everything I can give you like a good daddy does.”

Harry nods, locks his jaw; he delivers a quick kiss to Niall’s puckered lips, moves low and drags his mouth down, suckling purple bruises all over Niall’s neck and clavicle and chest; his nipples are little buds that Harry swirls his tongue around and lathers with spit, pulling back and puffing a breath of warm air onto the nub, laughing as Niall whimpers and gooseflesh covers his bare body like an establishing background on a blank canvas.

_So beautiful._

Harry continues to move down till he’s off the bed and on his knees, dragging Niall along with him; he hooks Niall’s legs over his shoulders, licks at Niall’s meaty thighs and places a tender kiss on the underside of Niall’s stimulating vein before looming over and gathering the tip into his mouth and sucking, sucking, _sucking_.

Niall’s fingers twine in Harry’s hair tightly, and the noises that are coming out of his mouth are music to Harry’s ears, is a soundtrack that motivates Harry to go deeper, to go faster, to go harder.

He swirls his tongue around the salty-soft length as he lowers, lubricating the shaft so it doesn’t catch in his mouth; he rolls his lips over his teeth, brings one hand up to fondle Niall’s balls while the other moves around absently and fingers, rubs and caresses at Niall’s ring of drawn muscle.

He can’t wait to be hugged, to be tugged by the delicious tightness.

“Oh, Daddy,” Niall moans, breathes, and Harry never thought he was one to get off from being called that, from being referred to as _Daddy_ , but the leaking from the tip of his cock as he undulates his hips against the firmness of the mattress tells him differently. “More, more, more ― give me _more_.”

And Harry does. Harry gives everything to Niall.

He hollows his jaws, shuts his eyes and sinks down, down, down; Niall’s tip tickles at the back of his throat and he hauls in a breath and swallows around the viscid head. Niall’s hips come off the bed then, and one of his hands is ripped from Harry’s hair as he balls his fist and sinks his teeth into it to keep in his erotic sounds of pleasure from dancing in the steamy air around them.

Harry’s eyes are watering as he continues to swallow and hold Niall down; spit is dribbling from the corners of his mouth and onto Niall’s shivering, shaking thighs. He pulls off, sucks up the sticky amalgamation of spit and precum.

“Be loud, baby boy,” Harry orders hoarsely, moving his hand up to grip the base of Niall’s mean prick. “Be loud so daddy knows he’s doing something right.”

Niall listens to Harry’s command as Harry tugs his hand up, jerking Niall off slowly, roughly; he noses around Niall’s testicles for a moment, draws one into his mouth and sucks, eliciting a growl of smothered ecstasy from Niall. He lets it slip from his mouth, moves low and puts his lips to Niall’s hole, kisses at his entrance again and again and again, bringing one of his hands down and stuffing it inside of his underwear, smearing his own precum along his shaft as he begins to wank in rhythm with his tugging on Niall.

“I’m ― I’m close, Daddy,” Niall manages to say; his arms fling out wide and he curls his fingers in the sheets. “Your baby boy is about to come, Daddy.”

“Fuck.”

Harry tears his lips from Niall’s darkly rich entrance, puts his mouth around the head and suckles till Niall’s arching, till Niall’s screaming, over and over and over, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.”

And his cum is salty, of course, and kind of hard to swallow as it squirts and gags Harry on the way down, but he eats it up like it’s his last meal before he leaves this world.

He continues to pay attention to Niall’s softening dick as he jerks an orgasm out of himself; he balls his fist on his tip, opens his mouth and hums against Niall’s swelled vein as he catches his cum in his palm.

He leans away then, opens his eyes and meets Niall’s; he brings his hand out of his underwear, shows Niall the sticky mess that he’s made ― and Niall turns red, red, red, which confuses Harry because the kid just came down Harry’s throat ― and then fingers around for a moment, coating his cum all over Niall’s obtruding hole.

“Harry?”

Harry shakes his head, offers a timid smile at Niall’s exhausted questioning; he moves down, lays his tongue out flat against Niall’s hole and eats up the tangy taste there, sucking and delving and dining like a true king, like an absolute ruler, like his baby boy’s daddy.

He pulls back once he’s satisfied, once Niall’s thighs are shaking on his shoulders and he begins to feel in need of a shower with his favorite boy. “I’m going to take care of you,” Harry says again, and he doesn’t know how many times those words have come out of his mouth already but too much is never enough and he’ll remind Niall every day if he has to. “I’m going to take the best care of you, okay, Niall?”

Niall nods, gives Harry a tired, out-of-it smile as he combs through Harry’s tangled hair, brushing out the snarls that have been left behind in a fit of vicious, electric ecstasy. “Okay, Harry. I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t.” Harry shakes his head, leans up and lays atop Niall, meshing Niall’s face with kisses. “You really shouldn’t.”

After all, boys like Niall are the reason men like Harry go insane.


	2. men like me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 13.6k of growing affection, borderline love, and mentions of attempted sexual assault, mentions of murder, suicide, abortion, death, and [kind of] verbal abuse, but there's also daddy/baby boy and daddy-dom/little-boy, too, as well as orgasm denial and body worship and a blowjob against the wall that leaves Harry's soul shaking because he adores Niall so much.

It’s been a week ― it’s been a week since Harry went to rescue Niall, since Harry asked for Niall to move in with him, since Harry offered a mindless deal to Niall that he took with open arms and a lecherous smile on his pretty, pretty face, and everything is kind of okay, kind of balanced, kind of melodic in a simple, easy, patterned way that Harry’s slowly, slowly, slowly becoming accustomed to. It’s been a week, and Harry’s not laughed as hard, not grinned as long, not hugged as tight, not kissed as sweet, not touched as soft, not came as quick, not talked as deep, not been as true, not cared as much as he has in the last seven days as he has in his entire life.

It’s been so, so _long_ since he’s felt the bubbly abandonment of bonding with somebody that’s as stelliferous as Niall, that’s as enthralling as Niall.

Too long, in fact. So long ago that he can hardly remember the way it feels to bare his soul, to shed his skin of the barrier he was forced to create as a teenager in the wrong crowd with the wrong girl with the wrong attitude with the wrong situation with the wrong amount of common sense, to take off his clothes and strip free of his plaguing thoughts and be naked in both ways, in every way, so intimate and raw and uncaged and open and _vulnerable_.

It’s been so long, too long, and Harry likes the way it feels with Niall, likes how he can be tender, likes how he can be hard, likes how he can be firm and soft and dominant and submissive and rough and careful and sour and sweet and wild and tame and carefree and cautious and stressed and relaxed all at once ― Harry likes how Niall lets him be anybody he wants, likes how Niall doesn’t try to grab hold of the reigns of Harry’s life and force him to change, to form himself around a misguided conception of what perfect is in today’s society.

Harry likes that Niall doesn’t judge, that Niall doesn’t discriminate, that Niall doesn’t question the reason why they sleep in different rooms or how come Harry doesn’t like Niall digging through things that clearly aren’t his business at all or shed light on the fact that Harry can’t keep his eyes off Niall when they’re in the library at the university, shelving books and picking up after the ruddy college kids. Harry likes how Niall is everything he didn’t know he wanted ― Harry likes how Niall is boy but lets Harry be a man.

And he only hopes, only prays ― whispers little encouragements in the darkness of the night, in the vulnerability and sensitivity of the a.m., when Niall’s sleeping in a different room down the corridor, when Niall’s cuddled up in his own bedroom and Harry’s wide-awake in his too-large bed that’s cold, cold, cold and empty without being full of two bodies that fit together _so perfectly_ ― that Niall is as solidly sturdy in his affection for Harry as Harry is for him.

Harry didn’t know it was going to be like this. He didn’t know he was going to lose his mind and his heart and his soul and his body to a little boy who likes outdated bands and classic novels and fun-colored socks and Western movies from the American Midwest and getting into trouble at the worst of times and cooking pancakes in the middle of the night and calling him daddy as he jerks off between the sheets of the room he’s to stay in.

Harry didn’t know he was going to watch himself fall in love with a boy who isn’t capable of loving or being loved, didn’t know he was going to watch himself fall in love with a boy who needs to be taken care of in all the ways he never was before.

After all, he can only hope to keep Niall around, whether it be for his own selfish needs or to simply protect Niall like he’s promised, like he’s sworn, like he’s tattooed on both of their hearts in ink that’s as invisible as air, that’s as tangible as love. He isn’t superhuman, and he isn’t any sort of god, either, and he refuses to dabble in black magic because he’s, quite literally, scared shitless of demons and ghosts and witches and whatnot, and all he can rely on his himself, for the most part.

His awkward, clumsy, dark, loud, demanding, touchy-feely self, that is. He doesn’t have anybody else, anyway.

But ― but he has Niall now. He has Niall, and he’s little and he needs to be cared for, needs to be protected, and maybe Harry isn’t as alone now as he was a week ago.

He just wants to give Niall the love, give Niall the attention and protection and understanding and acceptance he wasn’t given when he was Niall’s age, when he was in need of his mother’s hands and his father’s advice and his sister’s hugs.

Yeah. Yeah, this ought to be good. This ought to be bloody fucking _great_ ― Harry’s falling in love with a fucking teenager right when he’s decided to finally get his life on track after Leighton completely wrecked his world and destroyed every single precious thing he had, every single precious thing he’s ever wanted.

But it has been. Great, that is. This past week has been great ― it’s been bloody fucking _great_ and Harry will admit that much, at least.

-

“I don’t want to go to class today, Harry. I want to stay home.”

Harry stirs his tea and milk, watches as the brown darkness turns into the smooth, cream-like lightness that never fails to chase away his dark demons from his nightmares before; he grabs the mug, spins on his socked feet and sees that Niall is standing in the doorway of the kitchen, dressed in nothing but a pair of purple briefs and a cream-colored sweater that he surely stole from Harry’s closet at one point in time and mismatched socks with a thin blanket that’s patterned with squirrels and prairie dogs wrapped around his shoulders as he shuffles closer.

_Oh, my._

He looks cute and creamy and cuddly. Bedraggled, and dirty with dried drool on his chin and messy hair and blotchy, red-patched skin that Harry loves to kiss and scratch his barely-there beard across when they’re laid out on the couch together pretending to watch a film as they drink in one another’s crisscrossing personalities, but cute and creamy and cuddly nonetheless. Adorable, full of warmth that tastes the way Harry knows paradise to feel.

Fuck, he’s sexy. Niall’s _sexy_ ― he’s fucking sex on legs.

He’s only eighteen, though. He has no right to be sexy, of all things. Not yet, at least, in Harry’s opinion.

And ― and what does it say about Harry, you know, being a twenty-six year old man who’s attracted to an eighteen-year-old boy, who’s definitely falling in love with an eighteen-year-old little boy with a big secret and daddy issues and the need to be little and night terrors that sometimes keep them both awake long after the sun has climbed low in the sky for its rest?

He isn’t deferred by the age gap, isn’t disgruntled over the fact that he and Niall are eight years apart; Leighton was twenty-one when Harry was eighteen himself, and he can’t find it in himself to care how old somebody is when age is just a number.

However, if Niall was any age below that of seventeen, Harry would be fairly delayed in his affections; he doesn’t want to go to prison for robbing the cradle for a jailbait beauty because he enjoys living his life. It isn’t horrible.

For the most part.

Harry sighs, sits at the tiny table, adjusts his growing excitement with one hand while the other brings the mug up to his lips so he can sip at his morning brew; he and Niall haven’t touched one another intimately like they had the first night, and though Harry’s loaded up on condoms and lubrication ― and a few toys, too, because he has a feeling Niall’s a kinky little twink who likes it just as dirty and rough as Harry does sometimes ― he doesn’t fancy a swift romp on the kitchen table. He wants to take it slow with Niall, wants to seduce Niall till he’s nothing but a walking mess of lust and need and wanton desire for _Harry_ , for _Daddy_.

He’ll take his time, go slow; he’ll make it the best Niall’s ever had.

Besides, the fucking table will probably break as soon as Harry bottoms out; it’s not the sturdiest thing in the world, and it serves its purpose well enough to be kept relatively in one piece.

“And why not?” Harry asks, blinks once as Niall moves forward on bare feet, in a tangle of cloth as he pulls out the chair opposite Harry’s and falls into it in a way that reminds Harry of how he used to be, when his mum and dad and sister warned him of Leighton’s treacherous hold on his heart but he refused to acknowledge or listen to their jaded advice.

He should’ve. Looking back, he should have listened to every word they said and didn’t say.

But what’s passed is past, and he can’t rewrite history, but he can change the future so what happened then isn’t repeated again. He kind of likes that idea.

“I’ve already taken all of my finals for this semester, Harry,” Niall replies, brings one hand up to wipe at the sleep that’s crusted in his eyes from the apparent good night’s rest he had. Harry’s satisfied his baby boy slept through the night because he surely didn’t, and his cum-sticky sheets are testament to the reason why. “And there’s only a week and half left of school, and I ― I just don’t see the point in going when all the grades for this semester are going to be given out in a few days.”

“Hmm.” Harry sips at his drink, hums a soothing tune in his head ― it’s Bruce Springsteen, oddly enough, who Harry’s not listened to since Cheshire, since he was an eighteen-year-old kid who thought he knew it all and then some with a pretty girl on his arm and the world laid out before him, but Niall has surprised Harry and proved that he’s one hell of a fan of the older music and can dance for Harry like he’s made to move to the melodies ― and levels Niall with his eyes. “And your professors aren’t counting attendance in as a final grade that may roll over to next semester?”

Niall makes a face, screws his nose up in the cutest, raunchiest way. “I think ― I mean, yeah. Of course they prob’ly are. Some are, but not all of them.” He shrugs, drops his shoulders and sags, hunching his back and pouting his puffy pink lips. Harry wants to kiss them, wants to lather the pinkness with his tongue till they’re red and ready to be thoroughly devoured, and he doesn’t care if Niall’s brushed his teeth this morning, either. He just wants Niall. “One day isn’t going to hurt, is it?”

Harry sighs. Sometimes he feels like Niall’s father.

Well, Niall does call him daddy, so. _Ha_.

But ― but no, not _ha_ at all. Harry wants to take care of Niall because he adores Niall; the way he feels for Niall is the farthest thing from fatherly affection there ever was.

“Sit up straight,” Harry replies, and it’s an order, spoken soft and gentle with a hard edge of dominance, and Niall nods, swallows, fixes his back and puts his hands in his lap, twiddling his thumbs nervously. He’s got no reason to be afraid of Harry, though; if anything, Harry ought to be scared of Niall because he’s not fallen this hard, not felt this strong since he thought he was in love with a foreign girl with bronze skin and light eyes who whispered words in the night of the woods as she held the monster in her hands for him so sniff and sniff and sniff till everything in the universe was smearing together vividly. “How many days have you skipped this semester, baby boy?”

Niall’s face turns pale before a pretty shade of pink covers his fresh, rosy cheeks. “I’m not sure,” he answers, ducks his head and scratches at his temple. “I’m not gonna lie to you, Harry. I can’t count how many days on two hands. My attendance isn’t the greatest, and I’ve been kicked out of class more than once for showing up drunk, but ― but my grades are okay and I’ve been present enough to pass. I think.”

Niall’s riding that fine line of fun-loving and insane, and he’s going to fall over, going to topple off if he isn’t realigned, if he isn’t reigned in soon.

“You should go.” Harry is firm ― he isn’t that much older than Niall, only eight and a half years, and Niall is a semi-responsible eighteen-year-old boy, and Harry knows he’s capable of making a lot of tough decisions in life, but he needs a stern hand every once in a while, and Harry isn’t going to bend Niall over his knee and spank his bum till the pretty pale cheeks are pink, pink, pink because that’ll do no good, won’t further the situation any.

Not yet, at least. Harry isn’t going to bend Niall over his knee and spank an orgasm out of him while simultaneously disciplining him, either. Both of them have been hurt, have been scorned, have been burned and jilted and jaded and aged, and they need to grow and wilt and bleed and bud with one another first, before they take their relationship ― or whatever in the hell a one-time blowjob and numerous heavy kisses and scratched touches in the heat of the pleasure, alone and together, is called nowadays ― to the next level.

Harry doesn’t want to fall in love with somebody again who’s only going to leave him, who’s only going to betray him.

However, he reckons Niall won’t be able to tear him apart on the same level Leighton did. For one, Niall’s a male without ovaries, which means he isn’t able to produce a child from Harry’s sperm, and taking a man’s child from him is one of the worst things somebody can do.

He doesn’t think Niall would do that. Even if, by some miracle, Niall was able to produce children, Harry doesn’t think he would have to worry about Niall taking his kid from him.

“But ―”

“You are going to class today,” Harry states, cuts Niall off with a hard tone that kind of rattles the walls and shakes Harry to the core. Since when did he become so pressingly dominant? He’s never been like this before. “And that’s final.”

“Daddy ―”

_Fuck_.

He can’t just do that, you know. Bring about a kink Harry didn’t know he had just to get his way.

“No.” Harry stands, walks around the small island and fists Niall’s hair in his hand harshly; he jerks Niall up, and their lips meet in a kiss that’s full of morning breath and sweet milk and tea and tongue ― lots of tongue ― and if it was possible Harry reckons he would probably suck Niall’s soul right out of his mouth. “I’m leaving in forty-five minutes. Take a shower, brush your teeth, put on some clean clothes, and comb your hair, baby boy; you’re going to school, and that’s the end of it.”

-

Niall’s tapping.

All the classes of the day have been let out, and the last lecture was two hours ago, Harry thinks; there’s a few stragglers in the library, either with their nose buried in a text book they couldn’t afford or typing away on their laptops to make up for the work they’ve probably neglected, and Harry isn’t set to close the doors for another hour or so.

Harry was also able to call Louis and let him know that Niall was needed in the library to assist with all the returns and purchases and new additions, and Niall has been excused from his classes for the entire day, too.

He cares about Niall, wants Niall happy and healthy; he understands that sometimes people need to take the day off and gather themselves up from the mess that’s been created through no fault of their own, but he doesn’t want Niall to be left alone because he isn’t exactly sure what would happen to the precious boy without Harry’s presence.

And Niall’s tapping. Harry’s had a long day, had to deal with brainless university students and mindless co-workers attempting to flirt with him whenever they were around and Louis’s random texts that hold no significance whatsoever except for the fact that Louis hasn’t changed in all the years they’ve known one another, and Niall’s been annoying, been asking questions and causing problems and irritating Harry beyond belief, and he’s fucking _tapping_.

On everything. _Everything_. The table, the chair, the book ― _fucking_ _everything_. Harry wants to tear apart the entire library because of Niall’s tap-tap-tap; this is what insanity feels like, slow and methodic and calculated as it slimes into your mind and takes away all common, coherent thought.

“Would you quit that?” Harry whispers, seethes, throws a look over his shoulder at Niall, who’s sat behind him minding his own business even though he’s driving Harry up the walls with madness. “It’s fucking annoying. You’re giving me a headache and pissing me off.”

“Sorry.” Niall’s voice is soft and quiet, tender and abused, and Harry’s immediately full of sorrow for snapping at his baby boy like that, but ― but he’s had a rough day and Niall’s just been a menace, kind of, and even though he’s offered his help many times it’s only made things worse. And Harry isn’t taking care of Niall like he promised he would, and ― and that’s _wrong_. That _hurts_. “I’ll stop, Harry. I’m sorry.”

Harry sighs, grips the trim of the desk with white knuckles that are scarred with light pink flesh from his younger years, when he was mad at everything and the only way to relieve his temper was to fuck the pain away or punch a wall till all he could feel was physical ache instead of the mental anguish instead of the emotional sourness that a life like he lived brought on.

“I’m sorry, baby boy,” he apologizes, shuts his eyes ― _sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry_. But a half-assed apology isn’t going to make everything okay, is it? “I’m sorry for being mean to you. It’s just ― I’ve had a rough day, Ni, and your tapping isn’t making it any better. And I’m sorry, but ― but just stop, okay? Stop for me so neither of us get mad at each other later on, baby boy. I don’t want to say something I know will hurt you.”

“Okay,” Niall says, still as gentle as his touch was on Harry’s hand this morning as they walked up the snowy steps of the library, and Harry doesn’t have to turn around to know that Niall’s hanging his head. In fact, that’s the reason Harry isn’t looking over his shoulder ― he can’t stand knowing he’s the cause of Niall not being happy when he pledged to the both of them that he would be the one to take care of everything. “I’ll stop.”

“Thank you.”

It’s quiet then, and it’s the kind of silence that’s loud, that hangs heavy in the air like stagnated heat, that drips off of the walls like sticky blood in cheesy horror films, that curls around in the air like the tattoos that color and twine and twirl and dance all along his body.

And he _hates_ it.

He hates asking Niall to be quiet, hates snapping at Niall; it’s weird, really, how to explain the way he feels. Niall’s only been in his immediate life for a week, but so, so many things have changed. Harry laughs and does laundry on time and cooks dinner and picks his filthy underwear up off the floor so Niall doesn’t have to see the stains of spunk on his drawers from lonely nights when his hand was all he had to get off; he hugs and kisses and touches and soothes and protects and watches stupid movies and listens to dumb songs and imagines a life with the one person who surely won’t be able to stay in it.

He does all the things with Niall that he never did with Leighton, which only furthers the fact that he is falling so deeply, so helplessly in love with Niall at a rate that’s alarming, too alarming; he’s sure to keel over from a heart attack before they finally fuck, and he isn’t sure if he’ll get through heaven’s gates with a hard-on.

“Niall ―”

“He used to do it all the time, you know,” Niall says, slow and languid and thoughtful, as if he’s lost in his own world of remembrance that Harry isn’t allowed in. And Harry opens his ears, closes off his heart; he wants to know who this ‘he’ is Niall’s talking about because Niall’s been hurt, and that’s easy to see. “Incessantly. Tapping, I mean. He’d just do it all the time ― in class, at home, in his room, at the dinner table. He would always apologize, but he’d never stop. And one day when I asked him why he did it, he got all surprised. He said it was for me… to let me know he was there beside me even when I sometimes couldn’t see him. The thing is, though, I saw him all the time ― he was my favorite person to look at.”

_Was?_

“Who?” Harry asks, tries to fend off the bit of viscid jealousy in his voice. He wants to know what boy got to see Niall in a way Harry never will, and it’s stupid of him to want that, to crave that, of course, but he can’t help it.

“Who what?”

“Who is he?”

Harry turns on his heel, looks at Niall’s face, and his expression is warm and his smile is like sunshine and his shoulders are slumped in a delicate, gentle way as he remembers. “Who is who?” he asks, slants his head and blinks; he’s an innocent boy, yes, but Harry knows what it’s like to hear him moan in bed, knows what it’s like to touch his pale skin and leave red marks of aggressive pleasure behind, and the kid is far from the pure prince act he’s putting on.

He is pure, though, and a prince, too, in a way that certain things won’t ever be soiled no matter how many times they’re touched. After all, if you consider somebody dirty after you’ve touched them, after you’ve made them moan and smile and climax and happy, maybe you should wash your hands free from the dirt on them before you go around fondling others.

“Who used to tap things all the time?”

And ― and Niall’s face seizes up then and he shakes his head, sputters a few colorful words beneath his breath and drops his eyes from Harry’s. “Nobody important,” he replies, and his shoulders are shaking and his fingers are trembling as he twiddles them in his lap, and Harry wonders why Niall’s so easy to intimidate, why he’s so skittish in the shower and why he’s so tentative when he kisses Harry’s throat. “He was a neighbor of mine, s’all. He and I grew up together in Mullingar.”  

Harry’s heart hardens and his throat constricts and he spins back around to face away from his prince, from his baby boy. “Okay,” he says, seethes, hisses, and he knows Niall is lying to him, knows Niall is keeping so much important information from him, but he doesn’t say anything, refuses to cause a scene at work, of all places, in front of students who will no doubt spread the word around of Harry and Niall’s relationship-that-isn’t-a-relationship. “Don’t talk to me; that’s fine. I won’t talk to you, either.”

“Harry ―”

“Save it. I said I don’t want to talk to you. I _don’t_.”

They’ll just talk at home.

-

“Harry?”

Harry hums, flips through the pages of a returned textbook and empties it of all random items stuffed inside; weird things fall out, like a broken pencil and gum wrapper and thin pizza crust, and he rakes the accumulation off into the trash bin he’s got hidden beneath the wraparound check-out desk he’s made into a second home since he arrived in July.

“Harry, please.”

Only ten or so minutes have passed, and the library is empty save for the two of them; Harry still isn’t in the mood to speak, though, and Niall ought to be able to read his body language by now. He’s ignoring Niall for a reason, after all.

Harry sighs, looks up at the large clock that’s stapled to one of the pillars that’s spread out in the library; he’s only got fifteen more minutes to go before he can take Niall back to his house and ravish his body like he’s been planning all day long.

After a long, much-needed talk, that is.

“Daddy, I need your help.”

_Fuck_.

Harry spins on his booted heel, turns around and gives Niall a look; he’s sat at one of the mini tables that’s stationed behind the wraparound desk, having moved a bit away from Harry after their bitter argument ― it wasn’t really an argument, though; just a nasty misunderstanding that Harry is determined to sort out behind closed doors ― and he’s dressed in that damned creamy sweater and a pair of black jeans that hug his legs a bit too well, and Harry hates how he looks good enough to eat, to devour.

“What?”

The lights above are bright and fluorescent, and they catch Niall’s eyes in a way that makes the tears visible, and ― and Harry’s rushing forward a second after that, tripping over his own two feet as he grabs Niall up in his arms and pulls him close, holds him close. He puts his face in Niall’s hair as Niall tangles his hands in Harry’s shirt beneath the leather jacket he’s wearing; he sways them back and forth, side to side, and the movement is soothing, calms Niall’s hiccupping sobs and wet tears as he eases up from whatever hell he was dragged down to.

“Baby boy, I ―”

“Back at it again, are you, Niall?”

Harry freezes, wrinkles his nose; he turns his torso, looks over his shoulder and sees a tall, short-haired girl standing before the counter with a book in her hands he’s sure belongs here; she’s dressed cozily in a thick jacket and insulated boots, and the color of her crimson sweater makes the flush in her cheeks all the more bright.

She’s very pretty, very beautiful, and her wheat-colored hair is streaked with red and her big brown eyes are bright, reminding Harry of milk chocolate, but ― but the look on her face is so evil, so full of complete hatred and total corruption that shivers are racking Harry’s spine as Niall’s body goes limp against his chest.

“Who are you?” Harry asks, raises a brow as he pulls free from Niall’s grabby clutch, pushing Niall behind him somewhat.

She smiles, and her lips are screwed up into a sick smirk that makes Harry’s stomach turn. “I’m Faith Leatherwood, Beau’s sister,” she replies, brings a hand up to cover her lips as she introduces herself, coughing into her palm. “I’m Niall’s girlfriend.”

_What the fuck?_

“Harry ―”

“ _Who_ the fuck _are you_?” Harry asks, again; confusion is heavy in his mind, but he knows Niall surely would’ve told him if he was in a relationship before they began this fucked up affair with one another. Niall’s a mess, but he isn’t stupid. “And where do you get off forcing a relationship on somebody?”

She scoffs, rolls her eyes. “I’m not forcing a relationship on anybody, Harry,” she says, and the nastiness in her tone makes Harry realize why Niall’s flinching at every syllable. He isn’t scared of her, and he wishes Niall wouldn’t be, either. “Niall is my boyfriend. In fact, I’ve not seen him in a week. We were at a party together and the two of us went upstairs, and I got a bit sick and after I finished taking care of myself, he was gone.” She laughs, and it’s an ugly noise, and Harry’s never hated anybody more in his life than he hates this woman in front of him. “I guess you’re the one forcing a relationship on somebody, in the end, who is years younger than you, too.”

It’s her. It’s _her_ , isn’t it? She’s the one who tried to rape Niall ― this is the girl who Niall refused to turn in, refused to tell Harry her name.

This is the fucking girl who put her hands on Niall and tried to force him to have sex with her.

_Oh my God._

Harry seethes, walks forward a bit till he’s leaning over the counter and he and her are face-to-face. “Our age gap is more legal than you trying to force him to fuck you when he said no,” he replies, points out, and he thought his comment would cause a bit of indignation to splash across her face, but it doesn’t ― and he understands why Niall’s so scared of her now.

She’s crazy. She’s fucking _crazy_.

And Harry thought Leighton was mental ― this girl, Faith, has Leighton beat.

“I’m quite enjoying your possessive streak, Mr. Styles,” she comments, wets her lips with a pink tongue that Harry’s sure can work wonders. “You’re very handsome, and seeing you like this over a broken boy only makes me imagine what you would be like lusting after a real woman.”

Harry wants to vomit.

“I’ll let you and Niall play around for a bit, though,” she continues, disregarding Harry’s searing glare. “Even bad people deserve good things, and I don’t have time to toy with my mouse at the moment.” She shrugs, takes a step away from the counter and begins to exit the library. “The cat has a few things to do before she rips her food to shreds; I’ve got an interview to make. When the time comes, though, Niall will know where to find me. Don’t be late, Mr. Styles ― it isn’t polite to make good girls wait.”

-

“It was her, wasn’t it? She was the one who tried to rape you at that party, isn’t she?”

Niall nods, sniffles and hides his face away from Harry in his folded arms; Faith has left and Harry has just finished locking the library up tight ― he doesn’t need another person to rush in on an intimate moment he and Niall are having _ever again_ ― and all the lights are turned off save for the lamp on Harry’s personal desk behind the counter that Niall’s sat at, and they’re alone.

They’re alone, and they need to be because Niall’s about to fall apart and Harry doesn’t want to be seen mopping up the blood of depression when his hands are just as dirty as the tool he’s using.

Besides, nobody can clean your wounds quite like you yourself can.

And Harry knows ― he’s had to clean his wounds a few too many times without the help of his mum, without the help of his dad, without the help of the person he thought would be the love of his life forever.

She’s gone now, though. He isn’t sure if she’s dead, if she’s alive, if she’s changed, if she’s still the same ―  she’s gone, and he’s kind of gone, too, and they’re never going to see each other again.

Ever.  

He made sure of it a long time ago.

“Who is she?” Harry asks, walks forward; he sits on top of the desk, puts his hand in Niall’s hair and combs through the thickness, hoping to soothe the raging emotions that Niall’s no doubt being bombarded with for reasons unknown to Harry. But he’ll know ― soon enough, Harry will know. He’ll know _everything_. Niall can’t hide a thing from Harry. “Who is she, baby boy?”

Niall picks his head up, and his eyes are rimmed a pretty maroon color and Harry sees red, red, red ― nobody should be making his baby boy feel this way, _dammit_. “She’s… Beau’s sister,” he replies, whispers, brings the sleeve of his sweater ― of Harry’s sweater up to wipe at his nose, to smear his snot and sadness all over his face. “She’s Beau’s sister, Harry.”

Harry rolls his bottom lip between his teeth, nibbles on the tender flesh to keep in the words and accusations that want to escape, that want to permeate the air and destroy the imbalanced balance they’ve found with one another. “Who’s Beau?” he asks, light and easy; Niall’s in a sensitive place, a vulnerable state, and ugly words and mean tones aren’t going to bring him out of this funk, out of this warped reality.

Harry knows this. He was attacked ― he was interrogated for hours, over and over and over; he was never left alone, never left by himself after that night, and he wasn’t trusted for days to even sleep in his own bed ― and he knows that coming at Niall full-force isn’t going to help him, isn’t going to help Harry, isn’t going to help either of them.

Sucking in a rattling breath, Niall replies, “The boy who used to tap all the time.”

_Used to._

That’s the second time past tense has been used with this boy; is he gone, is he dead, has he moved, has he passed away? Why isn’t he here?

“Who is the boy that used to tap all the time, Niall?”

“My neighbor.” Niall shivers, wraps his arms around Harry’s waist and lays his head in Harry’s lap as he breathes, in and out and in and out and in and out, and Harry feels himself sinking back into who he was, into who he used to be, and that’s _not good_. “We met when I was five and he was six. He moved in across the street with his mum and older sister after his dad died in a mining accident in the States, and we just… we hit it off. I liked playing with dolls and monster trucks, and he had an awesome playset that we could take apart to make sick ramps for our toy cars and he was good at making clothes for my puppets, and we were the best of friends because nobody liked us but I liked him and he liked me, too.”

Harry’s heart catches, takes flight and goes out to Niall ― because he’s alone and he doesn’t have anybody, and Harry was alone and didn’t have anybody, either, but it gets better. It gets better.

Always.

Bad things don’t last forever, and life needs certain dark instances to make the golden smiles worth it.

“What happened to him?” Harry asks, careful and elusive; if Niall’s going to fall apart, Harry’s determined it won’t be here, won’t be on film for the authoritative figures in their life to see because what goes on between them shouldn’t be seen by anybody. They wouldn’t understand. “What happened to Beau?”

“He tapped too many times.”

Harry swallows. “Is he… is he dead, Niall?”

Niall nods.

_Oh my God._

“How?” Harry asks, combs through Niall’s hair. “How’d Beau die?”

Niall shivers, shakes and shudders. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore, Harry,” he says, leans up; his face is pale and his eyes are red and his yellow is fading to purple and he’s going under. “I want to go home.”

“Niall ―”

“Can we go home, Daddy? Can we pretty please go home?”

Harry sighs, nods, pushes Niall away and hops off the desk. “We can, yeah,” he says, grabs Niall’s hand and pulls him up, and they’re side by side for a moment, pressed together, and Harry leans over, puts his mouth to Niall’s temple and places a hard kiss there that he feels in his feet. “I’m going to take care of you, baby boy. You know that. You know that, don’t you?”

Niall nods. “I know.”

-

Niall’s lips are on Harry’s as soon as they’re inside of Harry’s house, as soon as Harry’s kicked the door shut and turned the lock ― and Niall’s definitely not weak, that’s for sure, and he shoves Harry against the wall with a fierce strength that makes his knees buckle, that makes his head clash against the hardness, that makes a groan of pleasured pain fall from his mouth as Niall licks and eats and sucks it up.

He tugs his mouth away, sucks in a breath; his hands move up to Niall’s hair, pet through the mess. “Slow down, Ni,” he says, giggles; Niall’s hands are on Harry’s chest, are pressing against the hardness there as his fingers scratch through the fabric. “Take it easy. We don’t have to go fast. It’s better if we go slow.”

“I don’t want slow, Daddy,” Niall says, whimpers, and Harry’s hands drop from Niall’s hair as Niall shoves his jacket off his shoulders, down his arms, onto the floor. “I want to see how fast I can make you come. I upset you earlier and I want to say I’m sorry.”

“Niall ―”

They’re kissing again then, and Niall’s mouth tastes like shooting stars and hot Coke and cheesy melts, and Harry’s growling into the kiss as he arches off the wall, molds his body against Niall’s. The back of his head kind of stings from the impact he had with the wall and his tailbone is protesting from the force; his feet are aching from being on them for so long and his mind is numb from the eventful day they’ve had.

But Niall’s tongue is in his mouth, and that’s making everything a little bit more okay than it was before.

Niall’s fingers are on Harry’s sides, are a fire through his shirt as they bunch the fabric up; he pulls back, licks Harry’s lips before taking Harry’s tee off and tossing it on the floor. “You’re so beautiful, Daddy,” he says, breathes; his fingers are easy as they rake across Harry’s tattooed torso, as they tickle at Harry’s nipples and trace the tattoos and poke at the scars that Harry’s had since Leighton’s reign over his heart. “You make me feel like a princess.”

“You _are_ a princess, baby boy,” Harry breathes, cups Niall’s cheeks in his hands; he leans forward, takes Niall’s bottom lip between his teeth and suckles the flesh till Niall’s sobbing with sensitive euphoria and Harry’s spiraling through the clouds of joy. “You’re my pretty, pretty princess.”

“I want to make you happy, Daddy,” Niall says, and his eyes are glazed over; he’s under, Harry realizes at that moment. He’s shifted into a little like he tends to when he needs Harry the most, in every way, and it makes Harry madly elated to know that Niall trusts him enough to show this side. But ― but is it Faith that’s brought this out; is it her doings, intentional or unintentional, that has caused this child-like part of Niall to be released again? “You make me feel good, and I want to make you smile.”

“Fuck, princess, you make me happy,” Harry says, hisses as Niall sinks to his knees and begins to fiddle with Harry’s belt; he’s talking out of ass, but his heart is controlling his bum at the moment. “I only smile when I’m around you. You make me happier than I’ve been in a long time.”  

Niall looks up with a grin, with a sparkle of childish adoration in his eyes. “I smile when I’m with you, too,” he replies, successful undoes Harry’s belt and button; he pulls down the zipper, tickles his fingers along the waistband of Harry’s underwear before delving beneath and dragging his nails lightly along Harry’s half-hard shaft, eliciting a muffled yowl of strangled pleasure. “But you should smile all the time.”

“When I think of you I smile.”

“Then think of me.” Niall grabs Harry’s base, squeezes his fingers around the hardness; he uses his free hand and peels Harry’s boxers off his groin, down his thighs. The air hits his tip, makes him suck in a sharp breath as his fingers splay on the back of Niall’s head. “Think of me all the time because you should be smiling all the time, Daddy.”

“Always, baby boy,” he says, whispers ― and Niall’s tongue is licking into his slit in the very next moment, suckling the precum into his mouth; Harry’s lips part and his eyes shut, and he kind of loses control of coherent thought, of definite distinction between reality and falsity, but he quite likes the descent into intimate madness. It’s never felt like this before. “Always, always, always. I’ll always think of you.”

Niall flicks his tongue back and forth, back and forth, over and over and over; Harry whines, throws his head against the wall. He gets sensitive easy ― sometimes overly-sensitized, too, and there’s often a steady trickle of precum that wets his length enough to not use lube, and he tends to stimulate the head till it’s _just too much_ because it feels more than amazing ― and Niall’s paying extra attention to the head, rolling his tongue and flattening the muscle, pressing it inside and all around, and that’s the quickest way to get Harry off, really.

“Oh my… oh my God,” Harry gasps, sucking in hot air through his nose, exhaling harshly out of his mouth. His legs are buckling, knees weakening, and Niall’s looking up at him with big, pretty blue eyes, and he’s innocent and he’s pure and he’s unblemished but he’s a promiscuous and entirely too sensual, as well, and it drives Harry absolutely mad. “Oh ― oh, keep doing that. Please… please keep doing that, baby boy. Daddy loves it ― loves it so much.”

Niall hums his appreciation for Harry’s praise, continues swirling his tongue around the tip of Harry’s weeping length; the precum is a steady drizzle now, and with each passing second he can feel himself throb, can feel himself twitch, can feel himself edge to brink of wet euphoria. It’s been a while since he’s been touched, you know, and he gets off regularly, of course ― with his own hand and a few of the toys he’s had for a while (sometimes he likes to test his limits, likes to see how many times he can come, likes to see how long he can edge till he’s a mindless puppet numb with a prolonged orgasm that never stops assaulting his senses till he’s raw with overstimulation) ― but there’s nothing in the world like having somebody take care of you in this way.

It’s different. It feels the same physically, for the most part; however, it’s the mental and emotional connection that makes it feel like you’re walking through space, that makes it feel like you’re made out of millions of suns, that makes it feel like the stars are shining just for you. It’s kind of like there’s a rope inside of your body that connects your loins with your heart, and it’s easy to stimulate the former, really, but when you can feel it in the latter, that’s when you know.

You just _know_.

And Niall’s doing it ― he’s touching Harry in every way he’s been touched before, yes, but it feels so much better this time because it’s Niall, because he cares for Niall, because he wants to never be away from Niall.

Sex, fucking, making love, screwing, whatever you wish to call it ― the mental, emotional connection is far more important than the physical pleasure, and once you reach the climax, once you reach the pinnacle of emotional-physical-mental coalescence, once you reach a bond of heart and mind and body, you feel like you have all the answers to every question in the world that’s ever been asked.

And that… that’s just really fucking cool, all right? It’s just _so cool_.

“Oh, princess, you’re doing so well,” Harry praises, scratches his fingers through Niall’s hair. “You’re the best. You’re the best I’ve ever had.”

Harry doesn’t want anybody else, either. Now that he’s found Niall, now that he knows what it’s like to have a piece of Niall, he doesn’t want anybody else.

“I’m close. I’m so close, baby boy ― so close to coming in that pretty mouth of yours.”

Niall pulls off, takes a deep breath that Harry can feel panted onto his length; he licks the tip, tickles the slit, and his eyes never leave Harry’s as he grins, as he opens his mouth and lays his tongue out flat.

Oh.

Harry groans, fists his cock; he’s flirting with the drop of destruction, but the bottom is a yummy pit of ecstasy, and he isn’t afraid to jump off the cliff as long as Niall will be there to catch him.

“Keep your mouth like that, princess,” Harry whispers, whimpers, flicking his wrist as he jerks himself off, as he chases the colorful high Niall showed him seconds ago. “Don’t close your eyes, either. Keep ‘em on me.”

Niall nods, kind of; he keeps his mouth open, keeps his tongue out, and when Harry feels the pulse, feels the rush, he taps the tip of his prick on Niall’s wet, flat muscle. He watches, mesmerized and shaking from the pleasure, from the pleasant release, as squirts of creamy, white-hot cum trickles from the head, landing in Niall’s mouth and all across Niall’s face as Harry comes and comes and comes till he feels dry, till he feels weak, till he’s haphazardly tugging his boxers up, till he’s sinking to the floor to be on the same level as Niall.

And Niall looks so good, looks so beautiful with cum all over his face, all on his hair, all in his mouth.

“You’re beautiful,” Harry says, whispers; he reaches out, shaking from the shattering orgasm, and touches Niall’s cum-smeared cheek, swirling the cream across Niall’s skin with his finger. “You dazzle me in the way stars only dream of.”

Niall giggles, turns pink at Harry’s breathless praise as he shuts as eyes, maneuvers himself to sit atop Harry’s stretched, stuttering legs. “You got me all dirty, Daddy,” he says, pouts, moving into Harry’s absentminded touch as he continues to paint his finger through the sticky, cooling spunk on Niall’s cheek.

“I did, didn’t I?” Harry hums, feels a spread of heated pride dance across his body; he smiles, leans forward, presses his lips to Niall’s forehead as Niall laughs at Harry’s show of affection. “Want me to lick you clean, baby boy?”

Niall takes his bottom lip between his teeth, nibbles on the plump skin till it’s red, till it’s the same color as the tip of his cock when he’s ready to explode. “Please, Daddy,” Niall replies, nods his head. He reaches out, twines one hand in Harry’s hair while the other knots in Harry’s well-worn shirt. “I would like that very, very much.”

-

“You have the same color hair as he did.”

Harry hums, opens one eye and casts a glance down at Niall; they’re lying in the living room floor, dressed in only their soft skivvies and long socks, and the beat of Meatloaf is playing delicately in the background, creating a world of warm comfort that Harry never imagined he would be able to experience from the hell he’s had to pay.

“Who?” Harry asks, whispers, brings his hand up and runs his fingers through Niall’s hair; it’s still a bit damp from the shower he took after Harry licked his face clean ― after all, it’s quite hard to suck cum out of hair, you know, and Harry’s kinky but he doesn’t enjoy picking tendrils out of his mouth. “Who had the same color hair as me?”

“Beau.”

“Oh.” Harry’s arms tighten around Niall’s body, pulling him as close as he can possibly get. “You can talk about him, you know. If you want to, that is. I’ll listen to you, Ni.”

Niall nods, sighs, puts his hand on Harry’s chest and begins to draw random little doodles on the fabric of the shirt with his fingertip. “I know,” Niall says, murmurs, and it’s dark in the room, kind of ― the only light in the house is coming from the lamp next to the sofa, to their left; it’s easier to be honest in the darkness, Harry thinks ― and Niall’s body looks softly beautiful. “But do you really want to hear about my dead ex-boyfriend who I lost my virginity to?”

Harry purses his lips, scratches through Niall’s wet hair as he thinks for a moment.

If he’s being honest? No, he really does not want to hear about Niall’s dead ex-boyfriend who took his virginity. _At all_. Beau is out of the picture, is six feet under the ground, but he got to have Niall first, and ― and Harry’s only a little bit jealous of a dead man.

He doesn’t really care what kind of person that makes him, though. He’s already falling in love with an eighteen-year-old kid; he can take whatever it is that will be dished out at him because he’s got all he needs wrapped up against his chest in a bundle of fake-blond hair and big blue eyes.

But ― but tapping too much shouldn’t bring on somebody’s death, should it? And when did he die, how did he die, why did he die? What time, what location, what way; why, how, when?

He’s got so many questions to ask Niall ― _so many._

It isn’t his place to ask them, though. He’s a piece of shit and he’s done his fair share of sketchy things, yes, but he isn’t going to pry in somebody’s past for his own grabby needs. If Niall wants to talk, he can talk, and if he doesn’t wish to ever speak of Beau again, so be it. He doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to.

But everything unsaid still lingers heavily in the air like the smoke of a crushed cigar in a glass tray.

“I want you to know that you can talk to me about whatever’s on your mind, baby boy. You can rant about how you hate drizzle at night but prefer it in the morning, about how you favor vanilla cream over hazelnut flavoring, about how you would rather eat a mountain of grilled cheeses than sit through an awkward dinner at the most expensive restaurant in London.” Harry stops, smiles, recalls Niall’s late night rambles and early morning yammering ― the kid can talk for hours if he wanted to, and Harry won’t ever get annoyed because he’s quite fascinated with the way Niall’s brain works. “You can talk to me about anything, Niall, and I’ll pay attention to what you have to say.”

“You listen to all of my silly talks?” Niall asks, shy and timid; Harry coos, puts his finger beneath Niall’s prickly chin and lifts his face so their eyes can meet and hold and spark. “All of it?”

Harry grins. “All of it, baby,” he confirms, leans down, puts his lips to Niall’s and kisses him till Niall’s mewling, till his fingertips are tingling with the rekindled sensations from earlier. He pulls back, though, because ― because he really, really wants to hear Beau’s story from the person who witnessed it front row before they dabble with one another’s sensual sides again. “There’s not a thing you say that I don’t hear.”

A blush stains Niall’s cheeks red, but he beams up at Harry with the biggest smile Harry’s ever seen. “You make me feel so important,” he says, gushes, and Harry blinks, sighs as his heart levels out into a steady thud-thud-thud that makes him feel at peace in the world. “You make me feel like I’m the most the most interesting man in the world.”

“That’s ‘cause you are. To me, at least, you are.”

Niall wets his lips, furrows his brows. “Harry?”

“I would like for you to tell me about Beau, if that’s all right with you.”

Niall shuts his eyes, lays his head against Harry’s chest. “You want to know everything?” His question is small, little, and it makes Harry ache deep in his heart to know that whatever happened between Niall and Beau is horrible enough for Niall to all but shut down whenever his deceased friend is mentioned. “All of it?”

“All of it.” Harry combs through Niall’s hair, shuts his eyes and allows himself to fall a little bit further for Niall’s tender vulnerability.

They’re in a muddy mess that Harry doesn’t want to wash from his body.

“Beau moved to Ireland with his mum and sister after he watched his daddy blow his brains out in America with a shotgun in the mouth,” Niall begins, and Harry’s body stiffens as Niall clings to him with all his might. _Oh my God_. “Beau was only six at the time, but he said he remembered his parents fighting a lot about this man his mum was seeing behind his dad’s back, and ― and I guess he couldn’t take it anymore, you know, being cheated on, and he got drunk a lot and took drugs all the time, as well, and one day it all got too much. He loaded a gun, put it in his mouth, and pulled the trigger right in front of his family.”

Harry lets out a breath of repressed air, but stays silent as he allows the images in his head to take over for a moment.

“Beau said… he said he tried to take the gun out of his dad’s hands. He said he tried to talk his dad out of it ― as much as a six-year-old can talk somebody out of killing themselves.”

The thought of a six-year-old child attempting to talk his father out of blowing his brains out rattles Harry to his core. Everybody’s been through shit, one way or another, but this ― this may just be worse than what Leighton forced him to struggle through. “He tried his best?”

Niall nods, burrows his head against Harry’s shoulder. “He said he did, and I believed him,” Niall answers. “Beau wasn’t really messed up about the whole thing, though. He wasn’t traumatized ― or, at least, he didn’t act like he was. He didn’t tell me about this till we were fourteen, and by that time we had been friends for years. I couldn’t see anything wrong with him before, and I didn’t see anything wrong with him after he told me, either. There was nothing wrong with him in my eyes. He was perfect to me.”

“Some people are good at hiding it,” Harry muses, turns his head to the side, puts his lips against Niall’s soft head. “Sometimes you don’t know how messed up a person really is till they sit you down to tell you themselves ‘cause they’re so good at hiding what they’re feeling and thinking from the world around them.”

Harry should know. After all, Leighton was the queen at keeping things hidden, and Harry learned how to hold his secrets from the very best. At least she taught him one good thing.

“He was. He was really sick and disturbed and scarred, and I never even noticed.”

“What was it like, Niall?” Harry asks, cautious and gentle. “Growing up with him, I mean. What was it like?”

Niall laughs, smothers the noise in Harry’s chest. “It was quite comical,” he admits, shaking his head as if he’s recalling something rather exasperating, and Harry smiles just a little bit at his baby boy’s joy. “One time, when I was twelve and he was about to turn thirteen, we caught a squirrel on the playground at school during recess and he talked me into bringing it inside to let it loose in the classroom. I got a proper scolding from that one, and we weren’t allowed to see one another for two weeks.”

Harry bites his lip, tries to hold in his laughter; it’s just _so easy_ to picture a twelve-year-old Niall with dark brown hair and big blue eyes and crooked teeth, dressed messily in a uniform that’s seen better days, giggling as he releases a wild animal in a room full of kids.

That’s a memory he hopes Niall never lets go of.

“There was this one time, too, when he and I were sixteen and pushed my trampoline next to my window. I was on the second floor and my room had a balcony, so it was easy to hop off the railing and bounce high as hell. I broke my arm that night, and on the way to the hospital my brother Greg ― he was watching us that night ‘cause mum and dad went out to dinner ― hit the brakes and threw Beau forward, and he wound up having to have reconstructive surgery on his nose ‘cause he hit his face against the windshield so hard.”

“You were a wild young man, weren’t you?”

Niall laughs, nods his head. “Beau and I were thicker than thieves,” he acquiesces, keeps his cheek pressed against Harry’s chest. “And when he died, it felt like a piece of me was gone, too, and that’s a feeling I hope you don’t ever have to experience.”

There’s no need for hope in this situation; Harry’s already felt everything Niall has. They’re two sides of the same coin in this predicament ― each of them know what the other is feeling in ways that nobody else does.

It hurts. That’s really the only way to describe the pain of losing somebody you thought would never die. It hurts, and it’ll never, ever go away. You don’t get over a loss, you don’t forget about a loss ― you learn to live with it at the back of your mind till you’re gone, too.

“How did he go, Niall? How did Beau die?”

Niall breathes in, hard and fast; his body is tight and tense, adhered to Harry’s side as if they’re puzzle pieces fated to be stuck together. “He killed himself the same way his dad did,” Niall answers, and Harry turns cold, turns dark. “It was my seventeenth birthday, and we were allowed to stay at this pretty cabin by the lake all weekend by ourselves as long as we behaved. He had everything planned out, too ― we swam and we cooked and we bathed in the sun, and… and he was my first and I was his first, too, and we just couldn’t get enough of one another that weekend. We made love over and over and over.”

“Niall?” It’s getting to be too much ― it’s getting to be too much, and Niall needs to calm down. He needs to take a deep breath, needs to clear his mind, needs to calm down, calm down, calm down. “Niall, baby boy, please relax. Please just calm down for me.”

“And ― and the night before we were supposed to go back, he got a gun. He got a gun and put the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger with me right next to him. And I heard it ― it woke me up ― but I didn’t think much of it ‘cause we were in the woods and the trees would scratch the roof, and that’s what it sounded like. It sounded like trees scratching the metal roof. But then I got wet, and it was thicker than water and it smelled like raw meat, and I woke up.”

Harry gulps. “You can stop, Niall,” he says, chokes, and Niall leans up, stares down at Harry, and his face is white and his lips are red and his eyes are blue and he looks empty, void of everything. “You don’t have to tell me anymore. You can stop.”

Niall just shakes his head, reaches his hand up Harry’s chest and digs Harry’s necklace out of his shirt to grip. “I woke up, and all I saw was blood,” Niall says, whispers, and then it’s all coming out in a slurred gush that reminds Harry of antiseptic needles and dry waterfalls, that reminds Harry of sitting in the waiting room at a hospital bouncing his knee impatiently and coming together relentlessly in the woods with the girl he thought he would be with forever. “He was holding onto my shoulders so, so tight that his nails cut through my shirt and made me bleed, and he was breathing hard and his eyes were going glossy and he was gurgling, and ― and he drowned on his own blood because he didn’t hit the right spot. He died because he drowned on his own blood, and I… I didn’t know what to do.”

“Please stop,” Harry begs, reaches his hands up and cups Niall’s cheeks; his heart is fast and his breath is cold and Niall’s squeezing his necklace so hard it’s cutting into the back of his neck. “Please stop, Niall. You’re scaring me.”

Niall’s scaring Harry more than Leighton ever did, more than the monster ever did, and that’s not good. _It’s not good._

“There was just… there was so much blood and I had to run to the main office and when they saw me they thought I killed him,” Niall continues as if Harry didn’t speak, as if Harry’s words have no effect. “They thought I killed him and I went to jail for it, too, and when I was released ― they almost didn’t believe me when I told them he shot himself, but my lawyer was worth every pound we paid him ― they didn’t _stop_. They didn’t stop thinking I killed Beau, didn’t stop saying I killed Beau.”

_Oh my God._

“And they told me it should have been me. People I’ve known my entire life were coming up to me less than two weeks after we put the boy I loved in the ground saying it should have been me. Over and over and over. They said it for so long that I began to believe them. They said it for so long that I began to believe I really was the one who killed Beau.”

“Niall ―”

“And I did, in a way. Just because I didn’t pull the trigger doesn’t mean I didn’t kill Beau.”  

“It shouldn’t have been you,” Harry hisses, leans up; his necklace has cut into his skin and he feels the metal drawing blood, and he prefers the physical pain of a wound over the mental anguish of imagining Niall as the one drowning in his own life on a bed that’s still sticky with cum that hasn’t dried just yet. “It was never supposed to be you.”

Niall falls forward then, puts his face in the crook of Harry’s neck; he’s crying, hot tears that scorch Harry’s skin, and Harry is too shocked, too splintered to bring his arms up around the boy against his body.

“I didn’t kill him, Harry ― I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t,” Niall says, blubbers, again and again and again, and they’re sure to need another shower after this encounter to wash away the nastiness of a bloody confession, to cleanse away the clinging memories that are dragging both of them into the dirt that has been covering two graves for years. “I didn’t pull that trigger, but I’m the reason he’s dead.”

-

Harry’s lips meet Niall’s as they trip out of the bathroom, as they stagger across the floor, as they fall onto the unmade bed; their teeth knock together and Harry catches his nose with Niall’s, and he feels the sting of tears prick at his eyes as Niall gasps, as Niall spreads his legs and allows Harry to slot his naked body against Niall’s bare, damp skin.

And it’s kind of hard to explain, really, how it feels to slide against somebody’s bare flesh, how it feels to rub and grind and roll and gyrate against somebody’s naked skin. It’s frightening and it’s awkward and it’s wet, and Harry’s quick to get hard as his cock touches Niall’s, quick to let out a string of colorful curse words as Niall bucks his hips up against Harry’s pubic bone.

But it’s tender and sweet and intimate, too; it’s difficult to be bare with someone, but it’s even harder to be naked with someone, to be stripped free of walls and transgressions and facts that hide them behind a castle of security. It takes courage to open yourself up to someone, to give them the power to destroy you as well as heal you.

Harry’s ready. He’s ready to bare his soul to Niall’s naked heart, ready to tell Niall the story of Leighton and the little boy he never got to know. Niall deserves to know, anyway.

Harry pulls back, licks his lips, gives Niall the biggest smile he can muster. “Do you trust me?”

Because Harry trusts Niall. He trusts Niall _a lot_. It’s been such little time, but the amount of minutes it takes to become infatuated with someone doesn’t matter for people like them.

Niall whimpers, spreads his arms out on Harry’s bed and fists the crinkled sheets in his white-knuckled fingers; they’ve just gotten finished with the second shower of the evening, and Niall’s eyes are still red from the tears he shed when he told Harry his secret.

They didn’t scrub hard enough. There’s still blood in Harry’s mind and veins of icy remembrance on  Niall’s skin, and they didn’t scrub hard enough to wash it all away.

“Harry ―”

“Call me Daddy, baby boy,” Harry coos, cuts Niall off; he sits up, moves to the side next to Niall’s head, reaches his hand up and trails his fingers through Niall’s wet hair, gripping the strands tight. “Now, be a good boy for Daddy and tell me ― do you trust me, princess?”

Niall shuts his eyes, kicks out his feet. “I don’t know,” he answers, mumbles, curls his fingers in the cool cotton sheets; Harry tries to pretend that Niall’s admission doesn’t cut him deep, doesn’t slice him open, but it does. And it _stings_. “You scare me sometimes. I don’t know if I trust you because I don’t know you.”

“What do you want to know about me?”

Niall blinks, gives Harry a pleading look that hits deep. “I want to know everything.”

And he will _. He will._

But not right now, not at this very second. Harry has a few things he needs to do first, and his ideas don’t involve talking.

“Don’t come until I tell you to do so, baby boy,” Harry commands, flipping back over to straddle Niall’s bare thighs. “Do you understand me?”

Niall’s vision glazes over at that moment, and it’s beautiful to watch him go under, really: his eyes go wide, go glossy, and his cheeks turn the color of red roses and his pansy pink lips part as whimpers begin to fall from his mouth.

Nobody’s ever been so beautiful before.

Niall nods, shuts his eyes, shows his teeth; he’s yielding everything to Harry at this moment, and it gives Harry a rush of electric satisfaction to know that somebody is submissive to him when Leighton’s dominated him for years.

“Words, baby boy.” Harry trails his hand across Niall’s chest, pinches at his hardened nipple till he arches off the bed with a cry of unreleased pleasure. “I want to hear you speak when I talk with you.”

“Yes, Daddy, yes,” Niall says, gushes, bites his bottom lip hard enough to make it swell with a purple-red bruise. “I won’t come until you tell me so. I’ll be a good boy for you, Daddy.”

Harry smiles. “Good.”

He moves low then, puts his mouth to Niall’s; it’s a slow kiss that reminds Harry of faint drizzles of rain, of soft rays of sunshine, of gentle beats of music. And he loves how he can just _be_ with Niall, you know? He doesn’t have to act, doesn’t have to pretend ― Niall is little and Harry is big, and Niall needs to be taken care of and Harry craves to take care of.

If that makes sense at all.

“You taste like mint and strawberries,” Harry murmurs against Niall’s slick lips, pulls back and puts kisses all over Niall’s soft, soft face. “You’re beautiful to me. When I look at you, I see all the things I never knew were real. And I’ll take care of you, okay, baby boy?”

“Daddy.” Niall bucks up, hard and red; his cock tastes so good, and Harry wants it in his mouth as deep as it’ll go. “Daddy, _please_ ― please touch me. Please make your princess feel good.”

_Fuck_.

Harry nods, puts his mouth back to Niall’s as he slides atop Niall, straddling his hips. His fingers uncurl from Niall’s hair and draw downward, caressing Niall’s face in the easiest of ways; he pays attention to Niall’s bushy brows, to Niall’s bumpy cheeks, to Niall’s crooked nose, before going further and tickling Niall’s thick neck, pinching Niall’s sharp clavicle, rubbing Niall’s hardened nipples, scratching Niall’s sensitive sides, gripping Niall’s fleshy hips.

He’s worshipping Niall’s body, treating it like the temple it is. It’s rolls and it’s angles and it’s edges, but it’s rivers and it’s cliffs and it’s mountains, too, and it’s beautiful.

Harry wants Niall to realize that. Niall is beautiful, and Harry wants Niall to realize just how much he’s adored.

“I’m gonna make you feel good, baby boy,” Harry says, vows, and there’s a lot more behind that promise than the naked eye can see. “I’m going to make you feel so, so good. You won’t be able to get my touch off of your skin for days.”

He keeps good on his promise to make Niall feel so, so good, too. He glorifies Niall’s body, adores Niall’s tender flesh ― he kisses the insides of Niall’s wrists, sucks on the corners of Niall’s ankles, licks at the bends of Niall’s knees, nibbles at the lobe of Niall’s ears, suckles at the corners of Niall’s lips, bites the sharp slopes of Niall’s shoulders, caresses the yielding submissiveness of Niall’s tummy, fingers the puckered rim of muscles between Niall’s lower cheeks, eats at the insides of Niall’s thighs, rolls the heavy balls hanging from Niall, tickles the delicate skin of Niall’s perineum, feasts on the excess dribbles of precum that leak from Niall’s hard cock.

He doesn’t let Niall come, though, doesn’t allow Niall to fall into the building, bubbling orgasm that’s making his body shake, that’s making his heart pound, that’s making his ears ring, that’s making his lips part, that’s making his eyes cry tears of deflated, distant euphoria.

The whole point of this ― making Niall feel so good, not allowing Niall to come, is building trust. It’s weird and it doesn’t make any sense, no, but to Harry, it makes all the sense in the world, and in the back of Niall’s little, tiny mind, it sparks with his thought process, too.

Because they’re broken, because they are cracked pieces that fit, because Niall craves to be taken care of, because Harry desires to take care of.

Boys like Niall don’t make any sense, men like Harry don’t make any sense, and people like them don’t make any sense. But, in Harry’s words, “for guys like us, for someone like that, it makes all the sense, and there’s nobody in the world that can judge us for something that makes us feel alive”.

And it does. _It does_.

“You can come now, baby boy,” Harry says, coos; his head is resting on Niall’s arched hip as his fingers circle around the blubbering head of Niall’s red, angry tip. It’s been hours, it feels like, and Niall’s swollen and ready to explode, and Harry knows ― from copious amounts of research and a bit of experience, as well ― that if a person trusts you deeply enough to allow you to destroy their inhibitions with just a simple touch of your body with theirs, you had better not fuck it up. Besides, Niall’s not a toy, and Harry will never, ever use him as such. “I’ve got you, princess. You just come whenever you want to. It’s gonna be all right.”

Niall nods, whimpers, finds Harry’s hand on his prick and intertwines their fingers; he comes, _hard_ , and it’s squirts of cum that Harry tries to catch on his tongue like the first snowflakes of winter.

“Oh, Daddy.” Niall’s body convulses, twists this way and that, and his grip on Harry’s fingers is strong as Harry coaxes him through his high, as Harry kisses away the tension in Niall’s tummy with lips that burn against Niall’s cum-splattered, red-blotched skin. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.”

Over and over and over.

_Beautiful._

Niall is a tender, intelligent, abstract soul, and he’s beautiful.

“How do you feel?” Harry asks, flicks his gaze up to meet Niall’s blurry, dilated gaze as he draws intricately in the cum and sweat mixed on Niall’s soft tummy and hard thighs. “Do you trust me now, baby?”

“Yes, Daddy, I do.” Niall nods, smiles; he wiggles down, slides his body against Harry’s, and they’re both in need of yet another shower after this wicked escape from reality, but that doesn’t really matter as they mold and bend to become one in the most intimate of ways. “I do trust you, Daddy. Always.”

“Good.” Harry smiles, sighs, pets Niall’s messy hair as he wipes Niall’s tummy and thighs with the wrinkled sheets; he’ll call in later, make up something for the both of them so they don’t have to face the world tomorrow after tonight’s revelations. “I trust you, too.”

-

“Tell something about you that I don’t know, Daddy.”

Harry smiles, puts his book down ― he’s reading the Forest of Hands and Teeth because his sister recommended he try it, and it’s not the worst thing he’s endured; he kind of likes the characters, at least, and Gemma’s usually satisfactory when it comes to finding new tales for him to experience ― and meets Niall’s eyes in the dimness of his room.

“What do you want to know?”

It’s past midnight now, Harry thinks, and Niall’s dressed in a large maroon sweater and loose sweats, and he looks cozy cuddled up at the foot of the bed watching a late-night rerun of some old television sitcom with a lazy smile on his face and a twinkle in his eyes that shines brighter than the stars outside the window.

“Tell me something about you that nobody else knows,” Niall says, laughs, and he’s not yet back to himself; the denial of an orgasm for however long it was he and Harry were playing has lengthened the amount of time Niall’s under, it seems, but he’s sure to come out of it soon. That’s what Google promised, anyway; it’s quite hard to predict when Niall’s going to become little, though, and Harry needs to learn the signs before either of them cross the line. “I want to know you differently than how the world knows you. I want to be as special to you as you are to me.”

_You already are._

Harry sighs, marks his place in his book and puts it to the side; he brings his legs up, wraps his arms around his shins and lays his chin on his knees as his body rattles with the discomfort of the secret he’s about to admit. “What if you don’t like me after I tell you?” he asks, and it’s mostly him musing aloud, really, but that’s a fear he has, of course ― what if Niall doesn’t like him after he finds out of Harry’s past? What if Niall’s disgusted with all the baggage Harry carries from days spent in the woods next to a glimmering waterfall with a pretty girl and the monster that caused all of his problems?

“Nonsense.” Niall giggles, bounces toward Harry till they’re sitting opposite one another, close enough to smell one another’s minty breath. “There’s nothing you can tell me that will ever make me change my mind about the way I feel for you.”

Harry shuts his eyes, takes in a breath that catches painfully in his throat and causes him to cough a few times. Here goes nothing and everything all at once, and he’s scared but this needs to be done.

“I’m a daddy.”

Niall slants his head to the side, wets his lips and crinkles his brows. “Of course you are,” Niall says, and his voice is squeaky, kind of; he’s still under, but Harry’s admission will surely drag him up. “You’re my daddy, and I’m your baby boy. That’s right, isn’t it? That’s what you told me, at least.”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Harry nods, reaches out and grabs Niall’s hands in his, interlacing their fingers as he draws strength from Niall to keep on going. “But I’m also a daddy in the other way, too. I have a child.”

Or ― or had, maybe. He’s not rightly sure what sense to use for this situation; his unborn son is dead, yes, but that does not change the fact that he was alive for a few months inside his mummy’s tummy.

“What are you saying, Harry?” Niall asks, bites his lip. His tone is empty and confused, and he’s quickly coming up from his little stage as every sparkly thing around him dims with the reality of the ugly world they’re living in. “What are you telling me?”

Harry shuts his eyes, leans his head back against the board of the bed. “What I’m trying to tell you is that I am a daddy to a little boy named Ellis Gentry who I never got to see,” he says, gushes, and it’s bringing back memories, talking of his son, that he thought he pushed back out of his mind ― him and Leighton in the hospital confirming their suspicions, him and Leighton breaking down after returning home, him and Leighton holding one another close for days till they decided to keep the fetus, him and Leighton going to monthly check-ups, him and Leighton picking out names for their son, him and Leighton buying outfits to bring their son home in, him and Leighton painting the extra room of their flat to accommodate the newest member of their tiny family, him and Leighton swallowing their pride and allowing their families in on the secret bundle of joy growing quickly in her rounding tummy.

But ― but then it gets bad, too: Leighton started snorting again and Harry started drinking again, and they never mixed all that much, really, liquor and drugs and Leighton and Harry, and in a fit of rage Leighton aborted their child just for spite, and the gruesome memories that follow are ones he doesn’t want to revisit tonight.

Not tonight, but soon. Soon, he will have to tell Niall everything; it’s just a bit harder than he thought it would be. He isn’t strong enough to bare himself just yet.

“What do you mean you never got to see your son?” Niall asks after a moment. “What do you mean, Harry?”

Harry opens his eyes, meets Niall’s wide, frightened gaze; there’s only guessing what’s going through Niall’s head, what’s going through Niall’s heart at this moment. “I meant just what I said,” Harry replies, gives a halfhearted shrug that makes him feel as if his soul is leaking out of his body as the memories of his mistakes overtake him. “I’m a father to a boy named Ellis Gentry who I never got to see because his mother, Leighton, decided that aborting him for fun was the only way to teach me to right the mistakes I made.”

Niall blinks, pulls his hands out of Harry’s; he moves to sit on his knees, and his fingers brush through Harry’s hair, combing the thickness away from his face. “Oh, Harry,” he says, whispers, and there’s pity in his tone, but that’s okay because Harry empathizes with Niall, too, and feeling sorry for someone isn’t a bad thing. It makes you and the other person human. “Who’s Leighton? Who is she, and what has she done for you to be this way?”

Harry shuts his eyes, clenches them tight. “Not tonight, Niall,” he says, drops his legs to his sides and wraps his arms around Niall’s waist, pulling him closer; their chests collide roughly, but they only squeeze one another tighter, firmer, harder in hopes that their embrace will chase away the darkness of their hearts. “Let’s not talk about her tonight.”

“But ―”

“We’ve had quite the day, yeah?” Harry interjects, cuts Niall off. “Let’s go to sleep, and I’ll tell you all about Leighton tomorrow when we wake up. I’ll tell you everything you want to know tomorrow, baby boy. I promise.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is all in Harry's POV, by the way.


End file.
